17 months Physical Development Etta has gained speed in her walking and is almost at a run sometimes. She’s even learned how to walk backwards, which she does at a good pace while laughing at herself. She almost never crawls anymore, so I can dress her in tights and dresses and nice pants and not worry about the knees being worn through. She figured out how to push one of the dining chairs over to the kitchen counter, climb up on the chair, and then climb onto the counter. A very clever girl! She got her second pair of shoes just before turning 17 months. They are a size 5 brown leather high top boot with velcro closures. Like her Mary Janes, they are by a top manufacturer and were just $12.90 marked down from $40.00 at Nordstrom Rack. She still fits in her size 4 ½ Mary Janes, but just barely. The new boot shoes are mostly for tromping in the wet grass and playing at the park, so I’ve started looking for new dress shoes as well. She absolutely adores her shoes and a little kitty purse I bought for her in Portland last month. Whenever we’re heading out, she’s quick to gather up her purse, attempt to put on her shoes by herself (she can’t, but it’s so cute to watch her try), and head for the door. She’s always had great manual dexterity, but recently she amazed me by putting finger puppets on her own fingers, one by one. About two weeks before Easter I brought out some plastic eggs and taught her to find them and put them in her basket after I’d hid them around the room. She learned quickly, but always insisted on putting each egg back where she found it after she’d gathered them all! I couldn’t believe that she could remember where each one had been. She also discovered within minutes that the eggs came apart, and things could be hidden inside. I then stuffed several, but not all, of the eggs with finger puppets and other little toys, which she gleefully searched for. She invented "Hand" dancing one afternoon when we were in a restaurant in Maryland. There was lively music playing, and as she was tethered into a high chair and couldn’t do her usual gyrations, she decided to let her hands and arms do the dancing, in perfect time to the rhythm, of course. She also likes to wave her arms slowly and methodically in front of her (when there’s not music) as if she were doing Tai Chi. Language Development Early in the month she learned the word "ball," which she pronounced "ba" at first. She likes to play with her toy balls at home, but is also fascinated by circular signs and other round things she sees when we are out. A few days later she added the words "duh" for duck, and "peh" for Pingu, a penguin character in one of her books. Sometimes while in the car, or before she falls asleep, she’ll do what I call "vocabulary recitation," where she’ll say every word that she knows. She starts out: "Dah-ee, mama, kih-ee, bah, duh, chee…" When she can’t think of anymore words, she begins again. This month her comprehension has changed noticeably. She seems to understand everything we say. If she hears us say a word for an object she knows, even if we aren’t speaking directly to her, she’ll go point to it, proudly. She understands and follows most commands, such as "let’s go upstairs and take a bath" (she’ll climb the stairs and head for the bathroom, ready to climb into the empty tub). Sometimes she takes me too literally. One day I was trying to sort laundry and she was "helping" a bit too enthusiastically, so I told her to go get the kitty, who was lounging on the floor nearby. I thought she’d just go over and pet the kitty gently, as she always does, but I had said "get" the kitty, so that’s exactly what she did. She picked the kitty up, awkwardly as it was the first time she’d ever attempted it, and started dragging the kitty over to me. Eating: Etta is finally drinking milk! I had to pull out the bottles and teats that I’d packed away a few months ago, because she was very firm about only having water in her sipping cups. While feeding her lunch I heat about 6 ounces of milk in a bottle. After lunch I brush her teeth and get her ready for her nap, then we sit in the big blue rocker in the nursery and she takes the bottle until she is too tired to drink anymore. She then pushes it away and snuggles down to sleep in my arms. I know that some people feel strongly that toddlers shouldn’t be sucking bottles, but if I weren’t pregnant, she’d still be nursing, and therefore sucking on me, so what’s the difference? She finds comfort in the sucking, so as long as she desires a bottle before her nap, I’ll provide it. However, I do have some standards, such as not letting her run around with a bottle or taking one to bed. When she receives a bottle of milk, it’s usually when she’s in my arms, as if we were still enjoying the intimacy of nursing. My bottle-in-arms theory isn’t just about closeness, it’s also to prevent her from squirting milk all around the house, as she likes to squeeze the teat and watch the milk spray out. She can wander with her sipping cup of water, since that is harder for her to spill and easier for me to wipe up if she succeeds in dripping some. A week after our triumph in accepting cow’s milk, Etta came down with a terrible cold, which ended up lasting over 3 weeks. I reluctantly took her off of milk to reduce her congestion, and started her on fortified vanilla soy milk. Much to my delight, she accepted the soy milk enthusiastically and has been taking it ever since. It comes in large cartons, but also in little 9 ounce "brick boxes" which do not need refrigeration, so it turned out to be perfect for traveling. New foods tried this month: Hush puppies, crab cakes, beef stew, gumbo, wild rice, ham metal snap (I had to take all of the terry cloth bibs with snaps away because she learned to pull them off, then chew at the snaps until she managed to separate one with her teeth and it came loose into her mouth. The snaps have sharp prongs and would be very dangerous if swallowed. Luckily uncle Buck noticed her trick while I was busy in the kitchen, and I was able to fish it out of her mouth before she swallowed it!) Other Events: Her big event of the month was our trip to the East Coast. She was ill with a tenacious cold which caused head and chest congestion and a constantly running nose, and developed into an ear infection just before our departure, so the vacation wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. I’ve kept a separate diary of our trip, so you can read more about it there. |
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| Read about Etta's trip to the East Coast |