Baby diary: 17 months 3 weeks

[petronia]

Gradual improvement on various fronts.

• Into songs that count fingers and body parts, and so on: he knows how to do "If you're happy and you know it," and most of "Head and shoulders knees and toes."
• Plays readily with his trains and blocks set, making vroom-vroom noises.
• Picks up tiny pebbles outside and examines them, only occasionally tries to lick them.
• Has marked preferences with regard to books. Refuses to read half of those he has. I'll have to make space for others...
• Sometimes imitates what he sees on TV, whether it's a Teletubby saying "dog" or New York City Ballet dancers waving their arms around.
• Laughs adorably when tossed into the air, but this is a difficult operation.

My AC's been ailing for some time. Refrigerant leak is the consensus, it blows readily but is only able to get the house from, say, 35 Celsius to 30. (The Gree guy is coming on Friday, because we called early: they now apparently have so many installations booked that there's a moratorium on repairs.) After a couple of heatwave days Alan and I escaped to my parents, where he of course was delighted to explore the big house and relearn how to get up and down the stairs, not to mention the car ride. The environment change and the heat did a number on his routine, though, so he would barely eat anything all weekend, and slept at all the wrong times. Actually, it became evident that he believes everyone in the household should go to bed at the same time (I always pretend to sleep to get him to sleep): he wouldn't accept that my parents stayed in the basement doing their thing while we went to bed, and herded everyone upstairs, like a sheep dog.

Compared to before, he markedly wanted to follow grandpa around, as if to get "guy time" in - my dad was doing various household tune-ups, like putting screens in the windows, and even hammered together my sister's old toddler bed for Alan. It's a sturdy thing: IKEA furniture from the late 80's was different.