17 Months

Today my daughter is exactly 17 months old. Soon she’ll be a year and a half, and then before I can blink she’ll be turning 2 years old. Time flies mercilessly by, and in the time I’ve had with her so far, my little princess has never ceased to amaze me.

Honestly, this kid could be the poster child for how you can never know what to expect.

I, like many other women, read a lot while I was pregnant. I read everything I could find about those first few years of dealing with a child. And while some of it was definitely useful information, quite a lot of it wasn’t helpful in the least because my daughter, like all babies, is unique. Strange, even.

My daughter, for example, never even noticed the switch from breast milk to formula and then to cow’s milk. I had been prepared for a struggle. I read so many horror stories about women whose breast milk had begun to dry up while their child stubbornly refused to drink anything else. Not my daughter. Once we got past the hurdle of getting her to drink from a bottle she didn’t give a damn what was in it.

She also has strange habits that I’ve never seen in a child her age, like her ceaseless love for her crib. Every morning when she wakes I have to hang out with her in her room and wait for her to decide that it’s time to come out of the crib. If I try to pick her up before she’s ready, I’m setting the tone for the day and it’s not a good one! The kid just loves her bed.

She shoos away cookies in favor of crackers. She adores plain cooked green beans. I’ve been trying since Easter, but she won’t let a marshmallow anywhere near her mouth.

And the reason I’m writing this post, the newest quirk that put the idea in my head, is that she has recently decided she simply doesn’t want her bedtime bottle anymore. No weaning for this kid: she’s gone cold turkey. Honestly, how many kids do that? Don’t you usually have to deal with months of crying and arguing to work a kid off their nighttime bottle?

Daughter, dear, you’re an odd one sometimes, but that’s why we love you. 17 months and counting…keep surprising me!