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Awesome 17 month old

Sweets turned 17 months a few days ago and she is just so sweet and funny and awesome right now. You know, objectively speaking 😉 Here are some reasons I think so.

Communication: She is talking more and really trying to get thoughts across. She’s finally started to use animal types rather than just their sounds, and her voice is so cute.
eg what has been for *months* “woof woof” is now “Dok-u”. Cats were “ow ow” and are now “meow” as well as “Cat”. “Tai-ga” (tiger) and “Pan-na” (panda) are new too. She is also trying to say lots more names, interestingly, she is more interested in the names of other children than their parents (E-yo for Leo, Mi-mi for Mika, Shi-shi for Sienna). Beau and I are still Da-da and Mama (or Mum-mum) respectively. She still doesn’t seem interested in saying her own name at all.

Sweets is very good at saying “ba-bye” to people. Most mornings we say “ba-bye” to Beau and wave at him from a window as he heads off too work. Often later in the day she will mention him “Da-da?” and I will say something like “Da-da has gone to work”. Reply “Ba-bye”.

New words include, “fo-k” fork, “Peese” please, “ca-cae” cup cake, “preem” cream, “pis-kii” biscuit. If she sees a treat she wants, you get a big stream of “ca-cae, peeese, peese, ca-cae, ka” along with bowing and wai-ing. This is because I’ve been teaching her to say Please and “khop khun ka” (thank-you in thai, which goes with a wai), when someone gives her something. Thus, she has learned this is the behaviour that gains her goods!

She also is determined to communicate. She will frequently keep saying a word at you, until you say the actual word, then she relaxes. Often it is something she can see. An example from earlier this week was when we were at the table and Sweets kept saying “ta-ta, ta-ta”. I couldn’t understand what she wanted. Then I realised she was trying to say “tahngkaya” (rubbish bin). I was folding up an empty biscuit packet in my hands and she was telling me it would go in the the rubbish bin!

Memory: It’s been over a month since Muggle left, but earlier this week, we went on a trip to drop off her laptop at a friend’s. Sweets saw it and immediately said “Na Ma” (her name for Muggle). She is also talking about stuff she saw earlier in the day, like today when I was BFing her before bed, she kept popping off to say “bubba?”. We’d been to visit a friend with her new baby today and Sweets just wanted to talk about it. I told her how we’d visited them and how she’d cuddled the baby. “ca-el”(cuddle) she said in agreement along with doing a rocking motion. She then said “cup” and I replied, “that’s right, you saw I’s cup and you had a drink from your cup too”. She was satisfied with this and went back to her milk.

Eating: She continues to be good with her eating and is getting really good with spooning up stuff to feed herself. Surprisingly tidy really. She is a bit more discriminating with what she eats now and won’t put just anything in her mouth, eg, when she was littler she’d have a go at a bit of salad, even though she couldn’t break it down. Not so interested in that now. She is *really* keen on dipping stuff (“dip-dip”). It’s partly my fault as I dip biscuits in my tea. Today she ate most of a small bowl of yogurt by dipping a biscuit in it and licking it off. Funny monkey.

Toileting: Sweets is doing pretty amazingly with EC. For the past few weeks a “bad” day would mean 2 or more nappies, an average day would be 1 nappy and a good day ZERO nappy changes. She still wears a nappy almost all of the time, but she seems to be better at holding on, or else I’m better at taking her to the toilet at the right time? She has also sometimes telling us when she wants to go by making a sign (hers is right index finger pointing into palm of left hand) and saying “sheee” (our toileting word). She was doing this earlier (13-14months), but the sign and sound she made then were different (index fingers pointing together and more like “tsss, tsss”). However she hadn’t done it for a while, it’s cool that she is telling us again.

Physical stuff: She is sooo good at going up and down stairs and walking and generally scrambling around the place. If we are holding hands she feels confident enough to run. Sometimes she thinks it is fun to crawl again or even just roll around on the ground! She really enjoys tickling, both doing it to others and having it done to her. Sadly she has a bit of eczema which she keeps irritating by scratching, however, she loves putting creams on. So much so that she asks for it “preems?”! She can open a tube (uses her teeth), but is still stumped by jars.

Other stuff: She has been going through a bit of a hitting phase, if she is getting frustrated with someone (eg one baby doll, two toddlers…) then she will hit them and say “Ow, ow, ow”! Luckily she doesn’t hit very hard and it seems to be less frequent now. She knows that she should be gentle and will demonstrate that too (gentle pat and a kiss). Today we saw several small babies and she was soo interested in them. Kept going over and touching them (nice and gently) and saying “bubba”.

She also loves baby dolls. There are lots of them at Playcentre and she is really into playing with them, putting them to sleep in cots, putting them in highchairs and pushing them around in pushchairs (a favourite activity). At playcentre she can combine two of her loves, baby dolls and water. She will happily bathe the dolls for up to 20 min (ages for a toddler). Of course, there is normally more than one doll and she takes them in an out of the water and drinks the water and splashes etc.

Last week I made her a little felt monkey and she really likes it. I wasn’t sure if it looked monkey-y enough, but as soon as she saw it she said “ah-ah” (monkey noise). She can easily hold it in one hand and likes putting it in and out of pockets (hers or other peoples). Sometimes asking where? (using arms and hands) when it is hidden and then gleefully pulling it out. She cuddles and kisses it and has even put it on me for a feed! She likes it so much it’s missing somewhere in the house… must go and find it.

If I think of more stuff, i might put it in the comments. I want to remember this and I also know my sisters, both overseas, will want as many details as possible! Must tell my brother that she loves the dolly he gave her and has it in her cot. She is the one who decided that it is called Dodo (I think because I refer to it as her dolly, different vowel sound though_. She asks for it when it is bedtime and pats and cuddles it.

Point of fashion: Not fussed
Current Obsession: baking, done so much in the last two weeks. We are out of flour.

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