17 Months.

This Friday Five post is being pre-empted today! Tomorrow is my not-so-tiny baby’s 17-month birthday. Oh how time flies. It’s not just a cliché conversation filler. It’s a real thing. I cannot believe it’s been nearly a year and a half since I’ve had proper sleep and about as long since I was able to rub two brain cells together.

At 17 months, Russell has been walking, nay, running since 9 1/2 months and has kept us busy with the baby-proofing around the house. Gates are up, bathroom doors are always kept closed (I fear babies falling into toilets, is that crazy?), and corners are generally padded. He is really surefooted these days and loves kicking around his little soccer ball, climbing his high chair, and going up and down the stairs on his own (except when he’s lazy). And as we started to feel a little more relaxed about him not falling on his head all the time, last week he discovered how to turn door handles and open doors by himself.

Actually, with a recent spell of super-early (4 am) wakings and a few hunger-induced meltdowns, he’s seemed to come out of that phase slightly smarter (don’t all parents think their babies are smart?!). It’s like all of a sudden one day, he started to be able to feed himself yogurt with a spoon without sticking it in his eye. He started to be able to stack blocks (rather than tossing them around), zip and unzip zippers, and figure out puzzling things with unwavering concentration (for at least five minutes). When we come down to the kitchen every morning, he informs me that I need to turn on the radio and flick on the lights. He loves helping us make coffee and scrambled eggs for breakfast. And he’s learned that if he sits down and cleans his hands, he gets a cookie. It’s amazing.

Epic meltdown over Coconut Bliss

But one super weird thing happened last weekend where Russell discovered a little container of Coconut Bliss, the best non-cream ice cream in the whole wide world, and he obviously wanted some (even though he’s never had ice cream before). I said no, as mean mommies do, and put the container back in the freezer. He had an epic meltdown. He was so upset that he tried to cry but no sound came out… he was that upset. He couldn’t even catch his breath! We thought he was just having a temper tantrum as these little people are known to do. But then his lips turned purple and blue and as his dad picked him up, his head fell back like he was asleep for one… two… seconds. And then his head jerked forward and he was fully alert and awake, looking at me like, “what the heck just happened?!”. He had actually been so upset, he held his breath and passed out. Freaky frightening to say the least. Google tells me this is common and that it’s involuntary… and that we’re supposed to pretty much ignore it. That giving in to the baby’s every whim and not setting boundaries in an effort to prevent these “breath-holding spells” will cause more grief in the long run. So, that’s where we’re at. Nervous that no matter what we choose to do, every split second of the day, we could be in some way harming our child.

Russell in his new rainboots at Olympic Village

He’s a good kid. And I love his funny little sense of humour. I suppose we’ll keep him. He’s napping relatively reliably every day for anywhere from an hour to 3 hours during the day, giving me a bit of time to chip away at the mountain of email that only ever seems to get bigger. In the afternoons, I often take him to the studio for quick errand-type drop ins, but it’s not feasible to work there with him running into yarn racks or emptying out cubbies of yarn onto the floor. So I’m often bleary-eyed, working late into the evening after he goes to bed, all the while anxious to get to bed myself in anticipation of a 5 am wake-up call. But it seems that while the days are long, the months are short. I’m afraid to blink, lest I’ll be writing the 27 months post soon.

Happy Friday!