Toddler Tracks III: Sixteen Months Old

It was actually Friday that my baby boy turned sixteen months old… and he’s getting less like a baby every day. Sorry for the wait – I know it’s been a long time since the last Toddler Tracks. It’s been a busy weekend, including the lovely wedding of my sister-in-law, coinciding with our first true dose of Indian Summer. But no more excuses! It’s time to blog.

This kid is the source of endless amusement. We love him ridiculously and can hardly imagine him being any more fun.

He’s not perfect, though. In case you’ve been wondering if we ever deal with any tribulations, I assure you, we do. Not serious ones… but he does whine sometimes, he has mini-meltdowns sometimes when he’s sleepy or hungry. Like any child.

He still nurses before bed and first thing in the morning, but sometimes he still wakes up to ask for milk in the middle of the night. We had several rough nights in a row last week, during which I thought, I knew the night weaning was too easy. Once we moved him from our bed to his own bed next to ours, it seemed to work naturally to phase out the night feedings… but of course it couldn’t really be that simple.

What do you do when your child, in the middle of the night, in the dark, says plaintively, “Milk… milk…” (actually it sounds more like “Moke”), and then follows it up with his newly-acquired “Palease…” You can’t say no. [I know many folks subscribe to the idea that once your child can ask for milk, he’s too old to be nursing. That thought may have crossed my mind in the old days before I had a child, but as it is, we’re playing that by ear.]

Other words overheard in the context of night nursing, in the event of my capitulation: “Sowy” (I have occasionally said, “Sorry, honey,” when transferring him to the bed to nurse, because it’s awkward – this time I didn’t, so he did); and “Totally.” Yeah, milk. Totally.

Here’s what else is up with my wacky sixteen-month-old:

• He’s learned some fun words like, Whoa, Yeah, and Wow. He only sort of understands when to use them.
• When he wakes up, he’s usually right back in gear. He starts naming things: “Fan. Nose. Daddy.” After a nap, he most often zeroes in on “Books”.
• He’s mighty observant. He makes very pertinent connections. Like, if he sees my bra somewhere, he says “Milk.” If I exclaim “Holy cow,” he says, “Moo.” Today, he picked up a little strip of black foam and said “Helmet”, because he knew it had come from the inside of his daddy’s cycling helmet. Sean and I were blown away today when he picked up the lid of Sean’s toothbrush holder and said “Diamond”: we had never noticed that it’s a diamond shape, but it is. Scary. Gives me the feeling that the only reason we have anything on him is because he was recently a baby, but by the time he’s three, he’ll know more than we will and run the household. Or maybe the province.
• Favourite words to hear come out of his mouth right now: Kisses, Please, Happy, Oink, Ribbit, Sleep (he usually lays his head on something soft to say this), and Cheeks (because when he says cheeks, he takes his little hands and pats your cheeks).
• Other funny words are Frog, Shirt, and Diamond. They all sound a lot like swear words.
• Closest thing to a real sentence so far, said to Auntie Em when he wanted her to take the lid off something: “Lid – off – pull – please.”
• Then there are some sounds: his tiger sound is pretty cool and fierce; he says “Beek, beek” to prompt me when I put his sleeper on him (I usually say “Bink, bink” in time with the snapping, because it makes him smile); and he has this new thing where he gets all grunty and then says “Poop”… and he’s faking. We’ve fallen for it a couple of times – but no more!
• Stuff he’s good at: picking things up, even when Daddy put socks on his hands just for shiggles; hugging and kissing people (and things); crouching and turning around backwards to go down stairs; toddling about while eating an apple (he can now walk with his arms bent at shoulder level instead of above his head); and banging out post-modern improvisation on the piano.

The E moments that take the cute prize for this round are:

• gripping the arm of the chair and head-banging while D and Auntie Beth sing Haddaway;
• expressing his love for his animal cookies (or was it his letter cookies?) by hugging them;
• looking at an arrowroot cookie and asking, “Letter? Letter?”
• asking for his giraffe while on the change table, saying “Doh-doh, doh-doh” to imitate the drums (it’s a “Sleepy Sounds” giraffe with a drum sound for the Play setting), then saying to it, “Goonit,” and kissing its nose.
• overhearing Beth and my mom and me speaking French today and latching onto the word aller, tromping around proclaiming “Aller! Aller! ALLER!”

And that’s all for now. I have photos to post, but that will have to be next time, because right now it’s time for bed. Thanks for reading.

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