Nettles update: twenty three months

If I had to sum up 23-month Nettles in one picture…

Here’s the story: One night last week, we hear a loud thump and screaming. We dash upstairs and Nettles had climbed out of the crib and fallen, presumably on her head.

The next day, it happens she’s home from gan and I put her down for a nap in the crib and go back to working in the kitchen. A few minutes later, I hear the pitter patter on the stairs… the little socked feet. I look up, and like a freaky child ghost, she’s standing there, staring at me, smiling.

She knows what she did.

So we move her to a bed. And the predictable happens: Put her down, she gets up. Put her down, she gets up. Leave her down, come downstairs, five minutes later… pitter patter.

Take her hand and bring her back up.

And then, last night, we come down. Sit at the kitchen table, chat over dinner.

And then.

We hear a shuffling sound.

“She’s coming down.”

I turn my head to peek around the corner of the kitchen. The stairs are right around a corner.

And there is Nettles. She’s crawling military style, backwards.  Her bum is up, her legs kicking her forward, her head facing away from us, nonchalantly sucking away at her pacifier.

She is acting like we can’t see her if she just comes down backwards.

We burst out laughing. Tears start rolling from my eyes.

Slowly, deliberately, Nettles turns her head.

She looks at me, she looks at her father.

And there it is, that shit-eating grin.

I actually laughed until I cried, and then cried some more, and crawled into bed to keep laughing, and then I hear, between gasps, the pitter patter, and Nettles is facing me, head cocked, smiling, knowing she won the day.

Again.

So Nettles, yes, you finally fall asleep. Yes, you will get used to your bed. Yes, this happens with most kids I’m sure.

But no one takes us for a ride quite like you.

No shoes are too big to fill.

And no one is going to mess with your style.

 


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