To celebrate his seventeenth month, Michael slept through the night for the first time in his life.

It’s quite a momentous occasion. Jake and I woke around 5 am, checking our nanny camera in shock as we realized we’d gotten eight hours of sleep for the first time in over a year. I feel like a completely different person…it’s amazing what sleep does to a body and soul!

Now, pray this is a habit that Michael will continue!

Michael’s vocabulary keeps growing in leaps and bounds. It would be impossible to list all the words he knows now. He picks up new ones every day. His current favorites, oft repeated, are “bagel”, “book”, “tractor”, “truck”, and “hot”.

His current fascination is machinery. Trucks and tractors are his top two favorites, with cars, planes, boats, and trains following. He especially loves riding on the tractor/lawn mower with Grandpa. He often runs down to their house yelling “GRAMPA! VROOM VROOM!” and making a beeline for the garage. If Grandpa isn’t there, he’ll still climb all over the mower without him, rocking the steering wheel and bouncing on the seat.

He loves books and reading. He loves lift-the-flap books the most right now. We recently visited my favorite local used bookstore and he was delighted by their selection of board books. We plan to go back regularly: he seems to have inherited his parents’ love of books.

We switched him from a floor bed to a real bed frame and rearranged his room to make it a little more toddler friendly. He loves it, and we do too. Having two separate play places in our house has helped him play with his toys more.

He’s becoming even more active and energetic (which I didn’t know was possible). He’s constantly moving, running, jumping, climbing, and falling (intentionally or by accident). He wants to be moving at all times. He dances to music, tumbles on the couch, and sings along to songs. Whenever he falls or hurts himself, he says “BOOM” in the saddest voice you’ve ever heard until we give him a hug and/or kiss the boo-boo.

He’s obsessed with cherries — as I pitted them for canning, he kept sticking his hand in the bowl and eating them. Grapes are a close second. If he could live solely on fruit and bread, I think he would be happy.

He loves playing in water — his water table and wading pool have been life savers as the temperature rises. He has a tendency to try and climb in the water table and sit in it, or dip his juice pop in it.

He loves giving kisses, and always goes in with puckered fish lips, exclaiming MWAH! He does this with us, with grandma and grandpa, and with icons or pictures of Jesus.

He has a slight cold right now which makes him uncomfortable and snuffly. It’s unfortunate that it corresponds with my hand injury: both of us are not operating at 100% and wrangling a toddler with limited dominant hand mobility is a struggle, to say the least.

So I’ve dusted off screen time again, after a month of no TV. We’ve been snuggling and watching Brambly Hedge together during the mornings or late afternoons, once he’s tired of reading or playing outside. Even though I would prefer no tv, I still cherish these gentle moments and cuddles.

Happy seventeen months, sweet boy.

Michael is 15 months old now, and he’s an active, adorable, mischievous, precious toddler.

His language and communication has exploded — he has too many new words to record here. However, he has definitely learned “no”, and uses it exactly as often as you’d imagine a toddler would. He mimics words back to us often, and interacts with “Miss Rachel” whenever we have screen time: clapping and singing and dancing along. His current favorite sound is “VROOM” — he will enthusiastically make it whenever he sees anything with wheels.

His favorite person is still grandpa: whenever we’re at church and he sees my dad in the choir, he shouts GRANDPA over and over and immediately runs over to him. He does the same with DADA. It’s adorable, but makes participating in church services a little difficult — if grandpa or dada are busy (as they often are), his protests usually increase in volume until I drag him out to the narthex.

Even with all the difficulties that come with having a toddler in church, I love watching Michael at church. He has a reverence for holy things that surprises me, given his age. Even if he’s upset or exhausted or fussing, whenever he’s in line for communion and reaches the cup, he immediately settles and is quiet as he receives the Eucharist. Even though he runs around the sanctuary, he stops before he reaches the solea (the platform in front of the iconostasis).

We’ve started weaning: day weaning is basically complete except for a short nursing session before naptime. We were going to wait to start weaning until after Pascha, but Michael went that way naturally with the help of nicely timed distractions from Jake and my parents. Night weaning is a different story…hopefully we’ll have progress to report next month.

Sleep is still abysmal. He’s always moving, always talking, always doing something — getting him to stop and be still enough to sleep is an exhausting wrestling match that we often repeat several times a night. Once in a while he sleeps for a three hour stretch, and we were elated and shocked when he slept from 9 pm to 3 am a few weeks ago. However, that hasn’t happened again. We’re hopeful might weaning will give us a little more sleep.

Being outdoors is Michael’s absolute favorite pastime. Now that the weather has warmed, we’re out in the garden and on our porch every day, soaking in the sunshine and spring. He loves his own set of garden tools (gifts from a dear family friend) and I have to keep a careful watch to make sure he doesn’t behead my plants with his zeal.

If there’s a puddle or standing water or any kind, he will find it. He loves putting rocks in puddles, or trying to climb into the dogs’ water bucket. We’re hoping to get him swimming lessons this summer to continue to foster his love of water.

He’s absolutely fearless — he plays with my parents’ dogs even though Max is twice his size. He loves sitting on my dad’s lap and throwing the ball for them. If left to his own devices, he would explore forever and never come back. I’ve often looked up from my gardening to see him halfway down our driveway to my parents’ house. I’m grateful we’re further back from the street.

Thankfully, he seems to have outgrown his hatred of riding in the car, and will happily play in his car seat without complaint for most drives. Longer drives are still a gamble, but overall our daily errand running is much more enjoyable for both of us.

He remains an adventurous eater: he recently had a bite of my spicy sushi and returned for more. His favorite foods are currently raspberries, mozzarella, grapes, pinto beans, bread of any kind, and blueberries.

I recently knit him a pair of socks from a limited edition self-striping yarn I purchased from a small business: they’re absolutely adorable and a tad bit big for him. However, I didn’t think about the fact they don’t have grips on the bottom…he took one step on our hardwood floor and promptly wiped out with a screech and a glare of betrayal. Good thing I made them large — we’ll have to wait until he’s a little steadier on his feet.

Watching him grow over the past month has been delightful — I look forward to seeing what sixteen months brings us.