17 months update

November 1, 2013

17 months

Morning naps are, but a distant memory for us by now as Squirt decided that he no longer needs his morning snooze. We had thought that it was his weekend thing when Squirt did not really want to do his regular morning naps as his routine has been somewhat disrupted, but apparently, accordingly to his Nanny, any attempts to put him to bed at what used to be his usual morning nap-times were met with violent protests. She has given up trying since.

Luckily for us, he still needs his afternoon naps and would go down for a good 2.5 hours at any given day. I’m hoping this will last for a little while more!

Squirt is one of the more shameless little tots I know. He isn’t shy at all. In fact, he shamelessly explores and makes himself right at home whenever we have play dates at someone else’s place, and leaving us with no choice but to be helicopter parents because of his sheer tendencies to get to things which he isn’t supposed to. A-typical trait of an exploring toddler; sometimes leaving us feeling embarrassed as we had to apologise for his impulsive behavior all the time.

That being said, watching Squirt explore has been such a joy. He tends to get lost in the moment, but is mostly always contented. When he manages to complete a task of whatever that was he was doing, his eyes would sparkle and he would be flashing his biggest grins to us.

Like his father, Squirt is not unpredictable. While he can be very vocal, he is quite a mild child. He is just as happy to tinker around or interact with anyone who would give him the time of the day.He is usually not that difficult to handle, although he has been more than a handful of late with his persistent urges of getting to things or doing the things he shouldn’t do.

Being the pessimist that I am, I’m gunning for Squirt to give us a curve-ball for the impending Terrible Two and Traumatic Three phase.

Squirt’s a funny little boy. I have, for many a morning now, caught him with his pants down or even completely off when I come into his room in the morning to prep him up. I have no clue as to how long he has been mucking without his pants. He would be lying on his back and twirling his pants around, but as soon as he realized that I was watching him, he would stand up, looked at me while attempting to get his diaper off, and then mouthed “Poo-Poo” as he tried his darnest to get his diaper off his butt. I realised later that he was just trying to tell me that he needed a change as, indeed, he had done his morning poop.

Oh, please God! I am not looking forward to the day when I would discover poop all over his bed and him one of these days when I walk into this room to prep him up for the day!

At 17 months, Squirt is really in no big hurry to talk. While he does mouth off different sounds every now and then, and at times tries to repeat what we said, his vocab is still pretty extremely limited. He does, however, seems to be showing some understanding of what we are telling him when being spoken to, and would willingly comply if he feels that the requests are reasonable enough.

This little trooper really is one of the happiest babies on the block I know, and this is without us trying too hard and reading any parenting books on raising Squirt; making me more inclined to believe that we have just been plain lucky with the card that was being dealt to us. I guess, in a way, after all the drama we had with Spud, we deserve a little break!

Squirt loves music, and regardless of what he is doing at any point in time, he would break out into his funny little awkward dance whenever he hears any audible music coming his way. He wiggles his tummy when he tries to dance whilst still strapped to his car seat. He walks like a drunkard, and bounces around like a mini-teddy bear as he shares a hug or two.

This little man’s dimpled smiles on his hyper-chubby cheeks ooze out cuteness. I sometimes find myself thinking that he still is a baby. Well…technically, he is our last child and so kind of IS the baby of the family.