Gingerbread boy!

Tristan misses his daddy A LOT

Tristan is a daddy's boy. Ever since he was able to laugh and play, he had become a huge fan of his dad. After all, his dad is much like a kid himself and a big goof :)

Tristan spends more time with me than his dad. With me, a lot of the time is spent getting things done like feeding, cleaning up, getting dressed, and getting ready for daycare. We spend some fun times together and play but I'm usually quite exhausted to go on for too long. We also do not-so-fun things together like teeth brushing, nail cutting (used to be a nightmare but he seems fine with it now), nose aspirating, and soon hair cutting. Sometimes, I think he sees me as the evil parent. I have to be the evil parent because if Jean-Louis did these things, he would be the dangerous parent.

Tristan spends a lot of time with his dad. His dad gives him a bath and puts him to sleep at night. They play together while I get dinner ready every night. They don't see each other as much so they get to miss each other more. He miss his dad so much that it has become an inquiry about where his dad is when he sees me first. He doesn't always but he has been doing this a lot lately. For instance, I would go pick him up from daycare and he would ask where daddy is. Yeah, that is pretty much my greeting these days. Jean-Louis used to come pick Tristan up with me at daycare but now he is biking at home after work for his workout. When Tristan knows that Jean-Louis is home or if he has recently spent a lot of time with Jean-Louis, he would say "daddy do" because he prefers daddy to do it instead of me. I think he knows daddy will leave soon and he wants to get as much daddy time as possible.

Sometimes it's sad to see Tristan so sad because he misses his daddy. In the morning, he would get upset that I enter the room to get him. He would whimper and cry out for his daddy. This happens quite often even though I go get him five days a week. One day, I showed Tristan some video clips of us putting up the Christmas tree and Jean-Louis was in the video in the background playing an interactive game with him. There was music, laughter, and he could see himself and daddy in there together. After a few minutes of this, he had a sad face and started crying out daddy in the saddest voice. Watching the clips was making him realize that daddy wasn't home and made him miss daddy even more. I gave him a hug and I had to stop playing the clips. He's a sensitive boy.

On the weekend it can get bad too. He spends more time with daddy on the weekend than with me. This is because I sleep in in the morning, we go out shopping and it's mostly me shopping and Jean-Louis who watches Tristan in the mall, and I often cook on the weekend as well. Tristan loves being with his daddy but all the toddler clingyness becomes too much for Jean-Louis. By Sunday, Jean-Louis is often yelling at him and can't wait to get back to work on Monday morning. It's funny because Jean-Louis goes from being happy on Friday evening to feeling crappy and exhausted by as early as Saturday night. He is just not used to being around Tristan that much and he doesn't have as much patience as me. Because of all this, the weekend frustrations really stress me out too.

Sometimes I think Jean-Louis is too hard on Tristan. Sometimes I think he yells at him too much. But despite all this, Tristan still clings onto his dad and will cry out to him at night. He loves his daddy and his daddy is crazy about him too. It's wonderful to see, even though I'm the one he usually brushes off in favor of his dad :) In fact, he clings to us both but I have seen an increased preference towards his dad in the past couple of months. I used to hear other moms call the father of their child, "their kid's hero" but I never really understood what they meant. Now I do.

Camera. Action. SING.

Camera. Action. SING. from Mommying Around on Vimeo.

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

iMovie Trailer: Our Trip to Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta iMovie Trailer from CocoaGeek on Vimeo.

Fraser Valley Eagle Festival

Yesterday, we decided to check out the 15th annual Eagle Festival at Harrison River. I browsed their website and was intrigued by the 2500 number count of eagles in the area. It said that they were feasting on salmon in the river and we have been meaning to see salmon for awhile too. When we missed the spawning salmon at Goldstream Park, I was bummed.

On the festival website, there is a stunning picture of the river with eagles all over. I was sort of expecting to see this. After seeing the real thing, I'm beginning to think that photo was photoshopped. Either that or we went at the wrong time. Maybe all the eagles came down to feed in the early morning?


It was a 1 hour 35 minute drive out to Harrison River. We checked out site 3: Squawkum Park and sites 4 and 9: Eagle Point Community Park and Sandpiper Golf Resort, respectively. We saw one eagle flying above the water at Squawkum Park but the site was mostly a salmon graveyard. Even in freezing temperatures, I could smell the dead fish. The next two sites were better but we still didn't see many eagles on the ground. To be fair, we didn't stay outside for more than 10 minutes at a time since it was ridiculously cold. It wasn't snowing and the ground was dry but it was like -3C and the wind chill made it worst.


We had a couple of close encounters with eagles coming down but it happened too fast and there was no chance we could have photographed them. At any one time, I only saw three eagles on the river. Up above though and a mile away, we saw many eagles soaring close to the mountain nearby. I managed to capture as many as fifteen eagles in one of my photographs.

I would have to say it was disappointing overall. The problem was our expectations were too high, we couldn't tolerate standing out in the cold for too long, and we headed out to the festival for the last two hours before closing. For us, it was not enjoyable. If we had gone earlier or dressed warmer, things may have been different. Would I go again? I'm not sure but if we ever do, we would definitely do things differently.

Happy 2nd Birthday Tristan!!!

Exactly two years ago, I became a mother. Jean-Louis became a father. Tristan came into our lives and nothing has been the same. There are tons of adventures every year and it's just amazing when you think about what has happened so far.

Every year we celebrate Tristan's birthday with a big splash. For us, it is a huge milestone. We threw a birthday party for Tristan today. Today is his official birthday and it worked out great that today is also Saturday :) We invited friends and family and had a good time eating. There wasn't much more we could have done since at two, kids are not old enough to follow instructions and play actual games. We'll maybe try some games next year.

Initially, we had a Thomas the Train themed party in mind but when it became too hard to get supplies for the theme, we just went with a theme-less party. Well, we didn't totally scratch the theme. We did have a birthday cake with a piece of Thomas the Train chocolate on top and we found stickers of Thomas the Train to throw in the loot bag. That was all though :( Again, I think at this age, themed parties are not that important and birthday parties are really still for the parents. As parents, we thoroughly enjoyed it :) Kids were well behaved, food was plentiful and good, and Tristan seemed happy.

Surprisingly, we didn't take many pictures or video. There just wasn't much happening and we mostly just ate and socialized while the kids played around. The party was from 11-2PM but nearly everyone arrived late. It was great for us though because I was very late with all my cooking. Sadly, I had to cut a lot of vegetables while Tristan clinged onto my leg and whined. Jean-Louis was out picking up the birthday cake at the time. It was a bit stressful but in the end, everything was done and everything turned out good. I did skip one dish on the menu since by then it appeared we had more than enough food. I also meant to cut up fruit and serve some Mexican candy but I forgot to do that too. Oops :( Unlike last year, where we bought a lot of food, this year I made everything on the menu, except for the cake and drinks.

PARTY FOOD MENU

Appetizers:

• Spinach dip with sourdough bread & assorted veggies

Main dish:

• Stir-fry chicken chow mein
• Stir-fry barbecue pork chow mein
• Pesto chicken panini
• Turkey/basil sourdough panini

Pop, apple juice

Dessert:

• Taro Cake
• Homemade birthday cookies

THE LOOT BAG

Contents:
Puffy stickers of vehicles, Thomas the Train stickers, birthday cookies (one of each kind), Mexican toys, and Mexican treasure chocolate coins.

It was the first time I assembled a loot bag. We didn't have any last year because I didn't know much about them and there weren't that many kids. There weren't that many kids this year either but the kids are older and I thought it would be nice to give them out as a "thanks for coming" gesture. I did try to invite a couple of Tristan's friends from daycare but none of them could make it :( Too bad for them because they missed out on these cool loot bags! Well, at least I thought they were cool.