Bananas

It's awesome that Tristan likes big people food.  Means we don't have to spend as much on dinky Gerber food cups.  Which he still loves, so we save them for car trips and Sundays because of how easy they are. But he's started eating mac'n'cheese, fruit yogurt, cereal and oatmeal, mashed potatoes and chicken.  It's great, because we can just sort of mash things up that we are having and feed them to him.  My  blender  has come in quite handy.  We only mash it a little, because we are trying to get him used to textures and chewing.  We never got to do more than fruits and veggies because of his rice sensitivity, so he was a little slow getting to solid foods.  Poor kid, he seems to be behind the 8 ball in everything.

The other day I made a loaf of banana bread and let him try some.  His favorite was the buttery crust, every time he put a piece in his mouth he would shriek with delight, and it was very cute to watch.  We also got some life cereal and microwaved it with milk to turn it into oatmeal, which he loved as well.  It's a lot of fun being able to try all sorts of new things with him.  He's not very picky.

Except for today, I'm pretty sure he is teething again.  He didn't want to drink out of his sippy cup or his bottle, and would fuss every time I tried putting food in his mouth.  He ended up taking 3 super long naps.  Poor kid, he got like this the last time he was teething.  At least he still loves munching on his crackers.

Physical therapy went very well.  It's hard trying to figure out what to do to get him to respond to active exercises and passive stretches.  He's just such a stubborn little guy.  It is also very hard for him, just because of how weak the left side of his neck and back are from being so tight on the right for so long.  It's like he's having to relearn a lot of things.  Both the therapist and me were torturing him for the entire hour.  He does very well up until the last 15 or so minutes, and then he has a melt down and  only wants to grab me around the neck and scream.  I feel bad, but it has to be done.  He might end up in therapy for awhile because he never really learned to pick himself up to crawl, so that makes it hard for him to build up strength in his arms.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but for later on, it makes things like pulling up and eventually writing difficult.  It's good motivation for me, but we can only do so much.  He refuses most things, like when we try to get him on his knees to support himself with his arms.  Or when we try to get him to lift his head when we lean him to the side.  Like I said though, his therapist has lots of good ideas, so hopefully we'll be able to make some progress.

Until then, he's great at walking, and loves for us to hold his hands and let him cruise all over the house.

happy chunky monkey

So proper, eating the banana bread