T is for Trouble

At 18 months, I think Trystan has a much wider vocabulary than he uses on a regular basis. Several months ago, he went through a "needit" stage. He's dropped that one now. Lately, he's been using a baby sign for "more". He has also learned a new, and useful, verb "Got". As in "got cookie". He also has been working on hard k sounds--stinky, cookie, cracker, yucky, etc. 2-syllable hard-k words, I guess. And he pronounces each syllable clearly and distinctly. Especially "cookie" :)

He doesn't say "s"'s yet. He says "shoe" but it sounds like a strangely swallowed "gue", and sock is "ock". Similarly, the soap that he requests in the bath was "hope", but he knows how to wash himself once he gets a handful of suds. He knows many body parts, but won't perform on demand. Casually mention "tummy" in conversation and he rubs his. Ask where his nose is and he laughs at you. And he calls my eyes "gla", which refers to my glasses. Or maybe he just knows that I wear my glasses first thing in the morning, because he usually says "gla" while I'm laying in bed and he's trying to convince me to make breakfast.

I've mentioned it before, but Trystan is an independent, self-sufficient kind of guy. Its simultaneously funny and frightening, how he will help himself to food from the pantry, or move a chair over so he can climb on top of things. This week, he moved a chair over to the stove so he could watch his daddy cook. Luckily, all hot pans and hot burners were at the back of the stove that day.

Last night, he dragged a chair to the back/arm of one of the couches, so he could climb up and over the arm of the couch. Yesterday at the doctor's office, he climbed onto the exam table completely unassisted. He was showing off for his pediatrician, who walked in just then with a gasp (I was helping Char at the time and didn't have a grip on him).

He's so little for his age, that his climbing skills look a little supernatural to the casual observer. As do his problem solving skills. His "high chair" is not a stand-alone high chair, but a booster that's strapped to one of our kitchen chairs. He can't get enough of a foothold to climb directly into it (though not from lack of trying). What he can do is to use an empty chair to climb onto the kitchen table, and then lower himself into the booster.

We're lucky that he hasn't figured out doorknobs or the gate at the top of the stairs yet. He is remarkably agile on stairs, to the point of attempting to crawl up and down them carrying large objects. He's way too short to walk stairs yet. He also hasn't attempted to climb out of his crib. I'm dreading the day that he does, because he's going to be dangerous wandering around the house at night once he's set free (his bedroom door doesn't shut quite right, so closing him in isn't really an option).

He can unscrew caps on bottles and tubes of things like toothpaste, and works zippers with ease (and my purse is no longer safe, even on top of the counter). He loves to sweep and swiffer floors (yesterday, he practiced taking a swiffer cloth on and off). He is trying to learn how to get dressed. He tries very hard to put shoes and socks on himself and others, and can put necklaces, shirts, etc (like our clean bras and underwear from the laundry) over his head. I ought to have a photo of Trystan with 3 pairs of his father's underwear around his neck somewhere....

I think he might talk more if Charlotte weren't such a jabberbox. But he's busy absorbing all of her conversation skills. They have a new game lately--she says a word and he repeats it (and they both giggle). So far, Charlotte sticks to words Trystan knows, like "stinky". If the tables were turned, I'm sure Trystan would be prompting his sister with all kinds of fun vocabulary.

He is, after all, quite the mischief-maker