Developmental update at 4 years old

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that Tristan is 4 years old. When it comes to small children, every year that goes by is astronomical! Tristan is so different and so much bigger now. As adults we may age but we are pretty much no different than we were a year ago. For kids, it really is astronomical. Throwing kids huge birthday parties may seem excessive but it's such a huge milestone that I really love doing it. Tristan's construction party was his biggest party yet! It will be hard to top that one. Parents tell me that kids grow out of the parties as well and they don't get excited about them much as they get older. Right now all the kids are so young and excited and that makes me even more excited to throw a birthday party! One day, we can all look back on all these special occasions with fond memories. The experiences are priceless :)

Speech

Showing his white teeth after a dentist cleanup.

Tristan is a little person who you can have clear conversations with. His pronunciation of letters is improving all the time. Anyone can understand him most of the time. He used to have problems saying the sound of "f" but now it's fine.

He is developing his own personality but a lot of Jean-Louis and I are in him as well. He copies us and often says "aw, man!" "that is so cool!" and "what the hell?" It's not the best thing but we don't swear (or at least I never) so you will never hear him say anything worst than "hell."

He can seriously listen to you and understand what you tell him, if you have his full attention. I had a conversation with him about how bad it is to eat things that are burned such as burned toast. I told him it tastes awful and it can also lead to cancer and cancer could lead to death. The first time I told him that it just stuck with him. He knows that I yell every time his dad eats burned toast and so when Tristan sees this, Tristan tells his dad not to eat it because he will die.

When I explain something to Tristan, he repeats what he learns to his dad. He explained to Jean-Louis how some of the African's have no money and no food to eat and that is why they have no meat on their bodies. We do not want to waste food here because we are lucky to be eating so well. That was the lesson there :)

Tristan sucks at keeping secrets. I have told him plenty to test him and so far he has only kept one or two. He blabs to his dad all the time!

Tristan's signature.

He can write his name and copy his phone number. He remembers his phone number from memory as well. He can read numbers well but he gets a few letters mixed up. He also gets French and English pronunciation of letters mixed up some times.

Tristan likes to talk. Some times there is no shutting him up. He's your typical little 4 year old! Blah, blah, blah. But it's so entertaining and he has such a sweet and innocent voice :)

Eating

Dining with him has been great lately. He is eating a bit more now but I think he is still under eating for his age. He eats everything we give him. If he doesn't like it much, he still eats it because he knows he has too. For instance, he doesn't really like bittermelon so we don't give him much but he will still eat what we give him. I love bittermelon :)

Being goofy with a funny looking carrot.

He just left his highchair this week! I know we took forever doing this but it was only because he was making such a huge mess. We don't feed him at all and he had to prove to us that he could sit at the table on a regular chair and not make a mess. This week, we had plenty of water spills on the table and on the floor :( One time it was milk too. He still wears a bib to protect his clothes. We may lose the bib soon, depending on how it goes. Then again, even Jean-Louis still wears something on his body to protect his clothes. Ahem.

Sleep

Tristan sleeps from 9 or 9:30PM to 7:30 or 8AM. That is about the same as usual. He went from not napping at daycare to going back to naps. When he is home with me, he doesn't nap at all. We put him down earlier around 8:30PM or so.

Physical Development

Tristan is 37 pounds. We are looking forward to when he is 40 pounds so we can put him in a booster seat in the car. That should make things a lot easier.

Tristan is around 40 inches (or 102 cm) tall. He is finally tall enough to reach the bathroom sink to wash his hands if he tippy toes. We still have to carry him for the kitchen sink. He is also tall enough to turn on any light switch in the house. I believe at 40 inches tall, he is now tall enough to go on Disneyland rides! Assuming he is brave enough to go on them.

Tristan is wearing anything from 3 to 5 year old clothes. The 5 year old clothes need folding in the sleeves and pants but they don't look overly huge. For clothes that are 3 years old, we just let him wear them as undershirts under bigger shirts. It's cold right now so the smaller shirts are coming in handy! Since he is short, 3 year old pants are just the right length.

Potty Training

Tristan still pees in his pull up at night. At one point he went almost 2 weeks dry at night. We thought that was the end of pull ups but we were wrong. He just went 4 nights dry and then peed again. Since he is our only child, we haven't felt the urgency to push him much. Now that he is 4, we are having more conversations with him about this because he can understand more. Hopefully he will decide to stop all pull ups soon.

During the day, we can trust him to go potty by himself. He pees and washes his hands by himself. When he has to poo, we normally go assist him.

Behavior

Tristan is a fun and imaginative child. He likes to pretend play and he tells crazy stories or sings funny tunes all the time. We sort of do that ourselves so he definitely gets some of it from us.

When he does something bad and we yell at him, he gets mad and tells us that he will hide under the table and never come out again. We need to control our yelling some times but he is going through a time where it is some times really hard to get him to listen and do what we tell him to do. He likes to stall things he doesn't want to do right away such as go to bed.

Tristan is a very fortunate child. We shower him with nice toys and great food all the time and I'm not sure if he is spoiled or not but some times he forgets how lucky he is. When we go to the store, he some times asks us to buy him things. I tell him that I don't like it when he asks for things and that really nice and good boys don't ask. Good boys just get things some times. I tell him it's okay to tell us what he likes and show us but don't ask us to buy it. Now when we are at the store, he grabs toys and brings it to me and says "this is really cool." See? He's learning!

Lately, we have found that he has been over opinionated and stubborn a lot. For instance, when he doesn't want to put on his coat himself and wants us to, we could be standing there arguing for 10 minutes. Sometimes we are able to convince him to do it but other times, he will throw a tantrum. Yes, a tantrum! We haven't seen these sorts of tantrums since the terrible twos. Luckily, these don't occur as often and don't last as long as the terrible two tantrums. It's still pretty awful though :(

Tantrums aside, I think Tristan is at the age where he can be a lot of fun to be with. He is mature enough to have conversations with and smart enough to rely on for help some times. He corrects us many times when we talk to him and we don't even realize we made a mistake. He likes to be useful so he helps where he can with things around the house. For instance, he helps set the dining table and this past weekend he helped put up decorations on the Christmas tree. He did break an ornament along the way though. It was the first one we ever broke:( Oh well. It could have been worst.

Tristan is very affectionate. We shower him with kisses and hugs and tell him we love him all the time and he does the same to us. His grandparents in France noticed how affectionate he was when we were in France this past Spring as well. I hear that kids grow out of this affectionate phase so I want to enjoy it as long as I can :)

From crib to junior bed

We finally did it. We converted Tristan's standard crib into a junior bed for him a week ago. There is definitely more room for him to grow but to him, there seems to be no change. It's still the same crib but much longer :) We kept the height the same for now since he is still a bit short and he could fall out. Even with the previous crib, I found him sleeping on the floor once. Oops. The junior bed will support him until he is around 10 years old. Or until he is sick of it? I guess we'll just see.

He is very happy in it! No adjustment was needed and he just feels like such a big boy now :) Every time he tells us "look, see how big I am?" he lies on the floor and shows us how long he is. Yes, it is true. He is a VERY big boy and growing fast. I kind of miss my baby in him:(

Tristan in his crib about a week ago. Tight much?

"Look, see how big I am?"

Finally interested in stuffed animals at 3 years

We've had stuffed animals since before Tristan was born. Over the years we have accumulated more through gifts from friends and family. Tristan was never interested in them so we never bought him any. A couple of times in the past, he brought a stuffed animal to bed with him but then he would give it up before falling asleep or it would just be a one night attachment. He would then forget all about it. When it came to playing, he never played with his stuffed animals at all during the day either. We kind of thought it was weird, especially because we saw little kids his age or younger always carry stuffed animals in their strollers. Many of the daycare kids have stuffed animals in their cubbies or on their sleeping mats. Again, Tristan was never interested.

Just a couple of months ago, he decided to bring one of his stuffed dogs to sleep with him. That was cool. This was repeated again and again. He may have forgotten a day or two and then he would remember and bring his stuffed dog to bed again. Again! It happened so many times that he has now developed an attachment to his stuffed dog when he goes off to bed. I mean he can still go to sleep without his stuffed dog but it's routine now to look for it and bring it to bed. Occasionally, he would want it taken away and we would just place it on his bedside table. It's amazing to see all this now because it just happened all of a sudden. I wondered what triggered it.

Tristan's stuffed dog even has a name. He named it Bean. Then one day, he gave it a full name: Black Bean. We weren't sure if it was because we had been eating so many beans from cooking Jean-Louis' vegan food or what. When we asked Tristan, he gave us a very logically explanation. The stuffed dog's nose looks like a black bean. So does the dog's eyes. Fair enough :)

Now Tristan likes to play with his stuffed dog, as well as more of his other stuffed animals. He likes to cuddle with them and role play. He sometimes sits and read with them or watch dvds with them next to him. I guess this all really started when he was playing with all his toys more. He has all these stories in his head of what is going on and then he acts them out with his toys and stuffed animals. I suppose you can say he is bringing life to all of his toys. A couple of weeks ago, he declared it was Black Bean's birthday. His dog was turning 3. When I made cookies that day, we declared them birthday cookies and sang Happy Birthday to Black Bean, who was not present by the way. Tristan said that Black Bean could not blow candles or eat cookies anyway because he has no mouth. Very true. Yup. Being parents is sometimes wacky :)

Tristan's second haircut

A year ago, I gave Tristan his first haircut. It was right before Chinese New Year because we wanted him to have a new look. We timed it just the same this year. Here are the before shots for this session:

Last time I gave Tristan a haircut, he was constantly moving and standing up. I trimmed his hair so it would be shorter and more or less even all around. The result? He looked like a little monk :( This year, I went for a more challenging haircut since he is 3 years old now and I just assumed it would be easier to cut his hair the second time around. The result? A cute retro layered haircut :)

It was easier to cut his hair this time. Just so you know, I am not a hairdresser at all. I have been cutting Jean-Louis' hair for maybe 9 or 10 years now but I use one of those electric shavers and it gets buzzed off easy enough each time. He likes his hair style and wants to keep the same cut forever. Boring. I don't use scissors on Jean-Louis. For Tristan, I used nothing but scissors.

I found some cute shaggy retro haircut pictures that inspired me. Then I watched a couple of youtube videos. I loaded the hair pictures onto the iPad for Jean-Louis to show me but I actually ended up just winging it and didn't even refer to those pictures. That's what happens when you are in a hurry! I don't know how hairdressers hold their scissors and comb at the same time. I tried but couldn't so I had to put one down each time. I must be holding it all wrong because my arm was tensing up and hurting. Luckily, Tristan was pretty patient throughout the haircut. He sat the whole time but he kept moving his head. Near the end though, Tristan and Jean-Louis were just nagging me to finish up and not be so perfect. I was only going for evenness, not perfection! Anyways, I think the end result was good. Is the haircut short enough for him to pass by as a "true" boy now?

Crib access is open

It's been four days since we removed the middle part of Tristan's crib. Now he can get in and out as he pleases. We're transitioning him into a larger bed.

Tristan turned three back in November but he still sleeps in his crib because we have had no problems with it. He doesn't jump out of his crib and he always calls for us to come to him in his room. We could probably keep him there as long as he is small enough and right now he is. But he's growing and we want to give him room to grow.

Removing the middle part of Tristan's crib is a first step in transitioning him into a bigger bed. Being able to get in and out on his own will make him feel more grown up. However, this hasn't happened yet. So far he seems to just stay in his bed and wait for us to come to him. Nothing has changed really. I expected him to run into our rooms in the morning and wake us up but it hasn't happened yet. He is so used to being in his crib waiting for us that he hasn't been brave enough to leave it on his own. At least that is what it appears.

On the first night, Tristan fell out of his crib once. He hasn't since then. In the morning, he calls for Daddy or Mommy and when we go in his room, he dangles his legs through the bars of his crib, just like he has always done.

It's funny because we started window shopping for bigger boy beds a few weeks ago and we thought we were going to buy a toddler bed. We figured it was the logical next step from having a crib. When I asked one of the sales ladies at the store, she told me that a lot of parents will move their toddler from toddler beds to twin beds when they are around 3 years old. Oops. Here Tristan is 3 and still in a crib. Technically, he's beyond toddler stage too so really it should be time for a twin bed. It also turns out that toddler beds are the same length as cribs but are assembled to appear like smaller beds. Jean-Louis thinks Tristan would be scared in a twin bed because it would be too big for him. This is only because he has been sleeping in a crib for ever! He doesn't sleep with us ever and has been sleeping in his crib every day since he was days old.

Everything is relative and every child is different. My friend's boy is two weeks older than Tristan and sleeps in a double bed. That's huge! I'm not sure when they moved him in there but that is a huge transition from being in a crib. My friend tells me that she and her boy can lie down together sometimes this way and it works well for them. The few times we have laid down with Tristan was when he was sick and we would lay on the couch. We don't have the same sort of problems. My friend also has toys in their boys room and we do not. We never play in Tristan's room. The room is strictly for sleeping. One of the reasons my friends has toys in the room is so the kids can play in the morning if they wake up too early. Again, we don't have this problem because Tristan sleeps until 7AM or later. By that time, Jean-Louis can take him and I can sleep in a bit more. Lucky for me, Jean-Louis only needs around 6 hours of sleep. It all works out for us.

3 years developmental update

Wow, I still can't believe Tristan is 3 years old now! Bye bye under 3 freebies. We all knew the time would come. But really, time goes by quickly and kids grow so fast! I'm so happy to be able to spend so much time with him while he is still young. I feel like we have celebrated every milestone and everything we do together will leave behind great memories for the future. With another birthday behind us, here is the latest in growth and development for Tristan.

GROWTH

He really is getting so big! Physically he is a bit bigger than he was a year ago. He isn't growing at the rate he used to when he was a baby so we're able to let him wear his clothes for longer periods. He still wears some of his 24 month clothes even. Most of them are pants though. Last year's 3 year old winter clothes will get worn again, which I'm thankful for. Tristan has nice clothes and some of them are really expensive French clothes so if he can wear them for more than one season, then I'm happy! Some of the pants we let him wear last year no longer need to be folded at the bottom. He wore the same Halloween costume as last year! It was slightly big last year and this year it may have been a bit snug. Jean-Louis weighed Tristan a week or so ago and he's 32 pounds. When compared to the other kids at daycare, Tristan appears to be a bit on the small side.

FOOD & EATING

Tristan may be a bit small for his age (or maybe he's average) but I know he eats well and I'm not worried at all. Jean-Louis and I are both petite so I don't expect Tristan to be very big or tall one day. For the past week, Tristan has been eating well. He some times nibbles at lunch but then when dinner comes along, he eats all the food we give him. He'll have a bowl of vegetable and chicken soup, then yogurt, then fruit and maybe a cookie. Overall though, we still don't enjoy mealtimes very much. Whether or not Tristan eats all his food or not, we still have to nag at him or coach him along quite a bit. Sometimes we even have to soup feed him a bit to hurry him along. Jean-Louis really really hates doing that! Lately, it has been pretty good though and Tristan has been eating by myself.

Things are pretty much back to normal now. When we came back from vacation, Tristan became a bit more difficult at the dining table. Thank goodness we are back to our routine. We're allowing Tristan to eat more things now, including junk food like processed candies. He had his first lollipop just a few days ago. At first he really liked it but then after about 10 licks, he didn't want anymore. He has also tried pop, black licorice, M&M candies, and chips. When he does eat junk food, it's more like a sampling. The idea is just for him to try it and let him know that he can't have too much because it's not healthy. I think it's important for him to try all sorts of foods so that he at least knows what they are and will be able to follow when people talk about them. We also don't want to deprive him to the point where he would engorge in tons of junk when he's at a party because he can't have any at home. I heard that is a problem with some kids. Of course we are very strict with him as well or else he would be a very picky eater and not listen at the dining table.

POTTY TRAINING

Tristan is going strong with his potty training. He is fully trained when he is awake and 50% of the time when he is asleep. It could be more because he has been increasingly waking up with dry pull-ups now. I can't remember the last time we had a potty accident. When we were in Hawaii, Tristan didn't have any accidents, even when we were on the tour bus all day. We were very lucky because it turned out that we had totally forgotten to bring along a change of underwear and clothes for him if he had an accident. So lucky! I don't bother asking Tristan if he has to pee anymore. He tells us and some times he will even hold it a long time, while I finish something up in the kitchen. We used to run up the stairs every time he told us but now we just calmly walk up. It's so nice to be potty trained :)

SLEEP

Tristan sleeps a bit less now since he has pretty much given up his naps. He stopped napping at home for a few weeks now. Sometimes when we are out, he may fall asleep and then we just let him. If he can sleep, I'm all for the naps :) We just don't bother putting him down anymore. He seems totally energetic and happy about it too. His bedtime hasn't changed. He sleeps around 9PM and wakes up around 7:30AM.

Tristan still sleeps in his crib. He slept in a twin and double bed when we were on vacation and only fell off it once. We thought we would have to transfer him over to a bigger bed or extend his crib when we got back. It turned out he liked sleeping in his crib. It's not a big deal to us since we would prefer to keep him in the crib as long as possible. He doesn't jump out and this way he is contained. I used to hear my friend talk about how her kids would run to her room at 6AM and wake her up. I'm trying to delay this from happening to me as long as possible. I know I'm lucky Tristan listens a lot. He wakes up in the morning and he calls out from his crib "Mommy? Are you awake? I'm not tired anymore." I would look at the clock and respond "Not yet Tristan. Go back to sleep. Mommy needs 20 more minutes." That usually does it :)

SPEECH

Tristan is piecing together new sentences like you wouldn't believe it. He'll hear something once and then try to use it in a new sentence. I'm not sure how and when this all happened but we're noticing it right now. He is also speaking with better tense. He'll say things in the present and past and is figuring out which one to use and when. He asks "why" to everything. I think the "why" stage started when we went to Whistler back in May. He's funny to have conversations with because he has answers for most things even though they don't make sense. Let's say he has a reply to most things :)

Jean-Louis says that Tristan has no theory of mind. What he means is that he doesn't know that there are some things he will know that we won't know. For instance when we pick him up at daycare and ask him what he did at daycare, he says I don't know. Then he turns to me and asks me "do you know mommy?" The same thing happens when I ask him about the kids at daycare. This makes it extra hard to learn about who he plays with and who his friends are. It wasn't easy knowing who to invite to his birthday party.

Tristan speaks English but has a full understanding of French. He says a few things in French and only French. He can say a few things and understand even more things in Chinese. One thing I'm proud of is that Tristan doesn't swear or say things like "damnit." I don't swear and Jean-Louis is controlling himself from saying things like "damnit" and "Jesus Christ." So far it's working because whenever Tristan is in shock, he says "oh my goodness." However, he does know dirty words and he'll say it to be naughty. For instance he says "caca" here and there to be funny. "Caca" is poo in French. Luckily, not many people know what he is saying and probably thinks he is just making funny noises.

BEHAVIOR

Some times we lose our patience at Tristan and then we yell and become aggressive. Tristan is learning from us and some times he protests and misbehaves for attention. A couple of times, he tried to hit or kick us when he was really mad. Every time, we pulled him aside, lectured him and got him to apologize. He's pretty good at saying sorry and he understands why we are sad when he is behaving badly. He is also polite and says thank-you and excuse me.

Tristan is rough when he plays so we're teaching him to be more gentle when pretending to play things like "kung-fu." We pretend fight him but he fights us for real and some times we really get hurt! I am definitely going to enroll him in some kind of martial arts class. He's going to kick butt!

He's goofy. He likes to make funny and weird faces all the time. I think he gets that from me. At his birthday party this past weekend, he had a hard time standing still with a straight face when everyone was singing happy birthday to him. He keep making faces and sticking his tongue out. I notice but Jean-Louis didn't. Some times he just does that.

Tantrums? What tantrums? Yeah, he still tantrums from time to time. They don't bother us much anymore since they hardly happen and when they do, they last maybe a few minutes at most. We're so glad the terrible-twos are behind us. From what I hear, threes are awesome :) It's already pretty awesome I think. Tristan really is a great little kid.

Halloween comparison: 2010 & 2011

Left side is 2010, right side is 2011 (but you can tell, right? ;) Also, same monkey costume was worn!

Tristan's drawing capability

Tristan is no artist. Yet :)

A couple of years ago, I was over at a friend's house around Thanksgiving and she showed me a picture of a stick man that was drawn by her then 3 year old son. It had a face on it and a stick body but the neck was disconnected from the head. She beamed with pride while holding it up for me to see. When I just smiled, she explained that he was only 3 and that a lot of kids can't draw that yet. Oh.

Now that Tristan is almost 3, I can't help but think back to that incident and laugh. I was clueless in what a 3 year old was capable of and I obviously wasn't impressed by the funny looking stick figure that was drawn. Now that I have Tristan to compare with, I am totally impressed! Tristan can draw a circle and something in it. Maybe a nose or one eye or two crooked eyes but that's about it. He can almost draw a face. ALMOST! I got him to try a few times and he came fairly close one time. It looked more like a panda head than a human head though :) Are you more impressed? The problem is I didn't ask for a panda head. I'm not even sure he knows what a panda is. Sigh. Either my friend's boy was artistically gifted beyond his years or Tristan sucks at drawing. Or maybe both.

Besides coming close to being able to draw a face, Tristan can also write the letter T very well. He recognizes it as the first letter of his name. He actually sees the initial as his name. Whenever he sees the first letter T in any word, he points and says it's his name. Then we say "oh yeah, that word starts with a T just like your name!" I'm trying to show him that there are more letters to "Tristan" than just the "T" but he's not quite ready for it. The only other letter he can copy in his name is the "i." No rush. We'll try again when he is interested.

Tristan's accidental ladybug

Tristan accidentally drew a ladybug one time. I think he was randomly drawing and then when it started to look like something he recognized, he pointed at it and said "look, ladybug!" We were quite impressed, even though we knew it was a complete accident :) So yeah. Tristan can draw circles, short lines, dots, and sometimes he can connect these things together. All the pieces are there really. It's just a matter of time before he draws a simple stick man :)

Tristan is getting better at coloring too. He understands that he should color and stay inside a defined area. He doesn't have the coordination or patience to do it yet but he gets the idea. He used to color in scribbles over a drawing. He is much better at identifying colors now too. I know I'm his mom and I'm biased but overall I do feel like he has potential. Remember the nice canvas art he did for me for Mother's Day? It was nice, no? :) Also, I remembered a daycare staff lady describing how Tristan was working to put together an art piece. There were all these pieces of tin and sparkles on the table and the kids were assembling them on sticky paper. Apparently, Tristan took his time and carefully placed each little piece of tin onto the paper. He didn't miss any. Hearing that made me proud :)

Spider? Fly? Suppose to be something.

I know Tristan is still young but a part of me really wants him to be artistic. I would love to do things like draw, paint, carve pumpkins, and a whole lot of other crafts with him. I'm dreaming of the day he will be able to help me decorate sugar cookies :) Ha. Too much to ask for? I probably have high hopes and expectations but if he is anything like me, he probably will enjoy some of that stuff. It would be so cool to sit by a lake together and paint a canvas or something. Jean-Louis can tweet and take pictures while we do this :) Lol. Jean-Louis isn't into creating art or crafts. If you were to ask him, he would just tell you that he sucks at it. We both tried to draw portraits and carve pumpkins together in the past but he would just get discouraged and quit. That's totally fine. When I carve pumpkins now, he just helps by scooping out the seeds and flesh for me :) I hope Tristan is artistic but if it turns out that he is not, we'll know which side he took his genes from. No offense Jean-Louis :)

Conversations with a 2.5 year old

Tristan is at the age where we can have conversations together and engage in pretend play. It's funny, confusing, and entertaining! I am loving this age :)

Here is us walking home from daycare. I always ask him how his day was and what he did. Then I ask about his favorite friends.

Me: Was Christopher at daycare today?

Tristan: No, he went on vacation to China.

Me: China? Why?

Tristan: He went to buy Toy Story stickers.

When we stay home together, we get to have lots of conversations. It's getting to the point where it's too awesome to miss and I want to remember this forever so I have restarted recording videos of him again. My hard drive is going to hate me but oh well :)

Today I made banana chocolate chip muffin top cookies. I gave him one of the cookies after his lunch and asked him what kind of cookie it is and what is in it. I thought he could examine the cookie and tell me what was inside. His response: Hmmm.... baking powder, I think. Me: LOL.

We went to story time at the library today. Occasionally,  a parent would leave the room with their child during story time. Tristan would then ask "where are they going?" Me: I don't know. Maybe they have to go home. Him: Maybe they are going on vacation to China.

What is up with China?? It used to be Mexico but now everything is China. There was a little boy at daycare who went away to China for vacation. He was apparently gone a long long time so Tristan and probably everyone else at daycare was aware that the little boy went to China. Tristan obviously still remembers.

A couple of months ago, Jean-Louis accidentally stepped on dog poop on the grass by where we parked our car. He made a big scene over it and spend some time cleaning it off before he went back in the car. Now every time there is poop on the grass, and Tristan sees it, he thinks that only Daddy can step on it.

Us: Be careful when you walk on the grass. Sometimes there is dog poop there. We don't want to get our shoe dirty and smelly.
Tristan: Oh. Only daddy can step on it?
Us: Nobody step on it! When daddy stepped on it, it was an accident! Just an accident.

Sometimes Tristan and I have lovely conversations during breakfast. While he was having his milk one morning, he asks me about his milk.

Tristan: This is cow's milk?
Me: Yes.
Tristan: When I was a baby, I used to drink Mommy's milk. Now that I'm a big boy, I drink cow's milk.
Me: Yes.

Later that evening or the next evening, he tried to make the same correlation using yogurt! He said "I am a big boy and I eat yogurt. When I was a baby I used to eat Mommy's yogurt." Me: Noooooo.

Tristan has great memory too. One day I was singing "Down by the Bay" with him and he sang along but only to parts of it. It was obvious he didn't know the whole song. Two or three days later, I heard him singing the song when he woke up. I was surprised to hear the entire song. He knew it all! Well, not all since you can go on and on forever but he knew all the parts that we sang together a few days earlier. It was as though he was rehearsing but we haven't sang it for days and I never heard him sing it without me.


I'm sure there are tons of other examples too but I can't possibly list them all here. From conversations I have had with other moms as well, it seems the 2 to 3 year old range is a very cute age for speech. Toddlers in this age range are learning one to two new words every day and are able to string a lot of new sentences together. Their vocabulary and speech is just exploding! For Tristan, he loves to sing and knows so many songs by heart now. He even teaches us new songs :)

Toddler at an older kids birthday party

Because Tristan is a toddler and almost 3 years old, we have mainly witnessed him around other toddlers or young children his age. There's daycare, story time at the library, and StrongStart at the school. We see him playing on his own and interacting with other kids and babies. We see all levels of development and kids are constantly on the move and have little attention span.

Yesterday, we went to my niece's 7th birthday party. Tristan has played with her many times and he has another cousin who is 4 years old. Many of the kids at the party were my niece's age since they were her friends from school. Tristan is turning 3 in November and was the youngest child at the party. Tristan mainly played by himself, as he usually does, but I noticed none of the older kids were interested in interacting with him either. The older kids played with each other and I guess it was because they all knew each other or are all around the same age.

As an observer from the outside, it was interesting to see how different 7 year old kids are compared to toddlers. The first word that comes to mind when I think about how they play together is "structured." The 7 year olds play very well together and have very structured play in that they play in sync with each other and move quickly. For example, a line up was formed to hit the pinata and when it was the older kids turn, they proceeded immediately after one another, without being prompted or guided to do so. When it came time to bring out the birthday cake, again everything happened so fast. There was no waiting and I even missed the photo shot of my niece blowing out her candles later on. The kids sang Happy Birthday first. Immediately after that they all sang a celebration song in French, something they learned in French immersion school. It was as though they had planned it all along but I know they didn't. They sang well together too and they were all in rhythm. I was impressed. Later a slip and slide was brought out for the water play and kids were sliding and throwing themselves on it one after the other. There was no break! I ended up taking 200 photos at the party, many of which were at the slip and slide. There was action every second! 7 year olds are fast and when they decide to do something, they don't hesitate. This of course all makes sense since as children grow older, they mature and become more like adults. After being around Tristan so much and seeing him with other toddlers and kids his age, I have only been thinking about toddler development. Until now. I was just wowed by the structured play and maturity of the 7 year old group.

Tristan will be 7 years old one day and will behave just like this. It's a crazy thought because he is still baby-like right now in so many ways. At 2.5 years old, he still eats in his highchair with a bib and we have to coach him along sometimes. He may or may not want to do something and it could take awhile for him to do it. He's indecisive, moody, and unpredictable. Okay, he's a toddler and there is just no comparison. Toddlers and 7 year olds are too different. But one day, he will be 7. Then 18 and before you know it they will move out and go to university. Crazy. And sad for us parents:(

Tristan is 31 months old (or 2 years 7 months)

It's been awhile since I have done a post on Tristan's developmental updates. Today is no special day, except that it is the 20th of the month. Here is a brief update on how he is doing.

Potty Training

Tristan is well on his way to becoming diaper free. He wears underwear all the time except when he naps or sleeps at night. He has only had 2 dry diapers so far after waking up in the morning but when he does pee in his diaper it only happens once since the diaper is only a bit wet. He's working on it :) This weekend we went over to Victoria and even when we had a diaper or pull up on him, he did not pee in them once. No accidents and he even did number 2 at a restaurant. This is not to say he doesn't have any accidents. There are at least a couple of accidents a week still. Some times we just don't make it to the bathroom in time.

Eating

Tristan is eating everything. He isn't as picky at the moment and will eat anything you give him. If he is picky, we bribe him with an upcoming course (e.g. cheese stick) and that usually does the trick. He has also been eating more sweets such as muffins, cookies, scones, and granola. These are all homemade but he also likes to eat store bought arrowroot animal cookies. I would say that he eats sweets maybe twice a week. He's at that age where we just want him to try everything and discover the world. If it's something that isn't great for him like a brownie, we'll just give him a bite or two. Jean-Louis almost let him try pop but then I said no. That stuff is pure crap and besides, Tristan hasn't even drank juice yet. Okay, so maybe he can't try everything quite yet! :)

Sleep

He sleeps from 9:15PM to 7AM. He naps for 1-2 hours. We can't really complain here. He's quite consistent and sleeps through the night. Some times if he wakes up a bit earlier, we just go tell him to go back to sleep and cover him up and he does.

Tristan is still in his crib and will be for awhile. There is a piece of wood we can move so that he can get in and out easily. We plan to remove that piece in October, after our vacation. Right now, he can jump in and out of his crib but he is usually good about staying inside until we get to his room.

Speech

He can sing but he is shy around others. Some of his favorites are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Eensy-Weensy Spider, Happy Birthday, and Wheels on the Bus. His pronunciation is getting much better now. He can have simple conversations with my Mom on the phone and she actually understands him. He is still mixing his French and English. He is a little us in many ways. He says "oh my goodness" a lot and I've heard him say "what the heck" and "what the dickens." He tries to explain everything with "because... I'm a big boy" or something else. He loves to say because. You ask him why or how come and he'll say "because" and then try to finish it off with something. We find that he is constantly rehearsing his speech with us. We have to let him too but it's very interesting to watch him.

In the last week or so, he has been saying "love you" to us. Yup, it has taken him this long! Not sure if he totally understands it but we'll take it :)

Growth & Exercise

Tristan weighs 30 pounds. He can jump down from the third step on the stairs. He likes to run because Mom and Dad runs. He walks home one way from daycare and he increasingly wants to walk more. He loves biking on his Strider and requests to do it every day. He is at that age where we can take him out more and he can have fun. Overall, he is just easier to care for and more fun to be with. I think that is a recipe for traveling more, don't you? ;)

Behavior

Tantrums are on the decline. At the moment. Of course this could change but we're enjoying every moment of peace:)

When he coughs, he knows to do it into his elbow. He is an expert at blowing his nose. Bye bye aspirator! He started blowing his nose a few months ago. A couple of weeks ago, he started to spit out toothpaste after we brush his teeth.

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

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.

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?

Tristan is 18 months old

At 18 months, Tristan is doing awesome. He is a normal size baby. I used to think he was a bit on the small size but he must have had a growth spurt because he looks normal compared to the other kids at daycare now. He still eats well, although it is getting harder and harder to feed him plain steamed vegetables. He is definitely picker with his food and is really starting to eat exactly what we eat now. He eats well with a soup and fork. He feeds himself dishes that are as thick as yogurt and he doesn't make a big mess. Anything less viscous gets quite messy. His face and tray is always messy but we haven't had to pick as much food off of the floor lately.

Once again, it seems as though he is in between clothing sizes again. Some clothes go from 12-18mo, 18-24mo, or just 18mo and Tristan is wearing all of those. I think I may be in some kind of denial about his growth because I still dress him in a few things that are 6-12mo. I keep telling myself one more time before he grows out of it but after the one time, I still won't pack it away. Now, I'm just waiting for the weather to change so I can really pack it away :) In a way, it is sort of sad because it's the much smaller clothes that are really cute and he is starting to wear big boy clothes now :( Diaper size 3 still fits well and it's a good thing too because we still have plenty! At 18 months, this is starting to mark the end of counting months. 24 months is next and then I will only be buying clothes for 2 years and up :( Today he is exactly 1 1/2 years old! See, I'm already counting in years! Oh my.

Sleep is still going well. He naps for around 45 minutes around noon and then sleeps at 9PM. Lately, he tends to freak out if he is alone so we stand in the room until he falls asleep. He wakes up at around 7AM. If anything, he is sleeping more now than he used to. Must be a growth spurt!

He can sort of say a few words but it's unclear if he understands them. He says "mama" and I think he mostly understands what that is. He says "dada" and "papa" too. He can say "bye" and "hi" or at least that is what it sounds like. He also tries to mimic us when we speak but he can't pronounce properly. You can definitely see he is trying. Somehow in trying to make sense of all his baby talk, we missed his first word. To us, he really isn't speaking with full comprehension of any word so we sort of don't count any. However, he has been repeatedly saying words like dada and mama for awhile. He makes the "uh-oh" sound a lot too and he is using it in the correct way. For instance, when something drops on the floor. He uses a lot of body language and facial expressions too when he is trying to tell us something. Most of the time we just look at him blankly. We still sign to each other and he is picking up new signs faster now.