On Saturday Cubling turned 17 months. It was the day I had to say goodbye to the 12-18 months clothes and replace them by the next size up - which are still tight (though long enough). What does that tell us? Cubling is not exactly a lightweight. I mean, she looks fine to me, until I see other girls her age. Who strike me as undernourished in comparison.

On Friday I tried out a first proper outing on the bike, with her on the bike seat. Hm, I've had better rides. The bike seat is very closely behind the saddle and even though my bum barely touched the saddle, Cubling felt it was too close for comfort. When I pedalled, I kicked her feet. Her helmet was pushed forward against my back by her backrest. She rightly protested and I had to concede that there may be just about space for Cubling, but certainly not for a helmeted Cubling. This seat is meant to fit until she's 4 and already now it is a very tight squeeze.

On the "watch what I can do now front", she continues to learn more words and use made up ones for things we're not quite sure of. Vocal as she is, people admire her language development, but really, she just uses a few words a lot and constantly talks, her number of words are pretty average for a girl her age. She's started to sing. Recognisably she does twinkle twinkle little star, old McDonald and three blind mice. Her obsession with keys, dogs, babies, snake and cats continues. She loves running away from us and escaping our attempts to catch her/pick her up, especially at bed time and on the road. She can be very fast. I mean, I have to run to catch her. Yesterday, we walked to the swing park and actually had her walk all the way there - it did take a while, because leaves, doors, keyholes, cars, lampposts, ants, pigeons, flowers needed exploring on the way, but she was much happier to walk than to go into the buggy.

According to potty training check lists, she seems as good as ready. But I'm not. And I can't see her sitting still for any length of time on anything, nevermind a plastic potty, so let's leave it for the moment.

For the past month, she's developed a habit of sleeping through most nights. So the end of night feeds seemed to have done the trick. First she slept through until 5 am, and bit by bit it got longer. There are still nights when she wakes, but mostly it doesn't take much to get her back to the land of nod (I no longer need to pick her up), and now sometimes she'll sleep until 8am. I still can't quite believe it, as I could never believe parents who told me their baby slept through all the time because it was so far from my own experience. I'm really glad though we managed to get there without crying it out, without controlled crying, even without pick up put down. When I cut the night feeds, I let her sleep in my bed, and cuddled when she woke. Once she didn't wake anymore, she happily slept on her own again.

We celebrated the 17 months by visiting Sea Life in Balloch, on the shores of Loch Lomond. It was a lovely day so we spent more time outside than inside, Cubling go her first ride on the merrygoround and looooved it. There was plenty of space to give her a free run, lots of dogs to keep her happy, and lots of people she could say "hello" too. Inside, she was taken by fish seahorses and otters. We even found Nemo and Dora, although I was most impressed with a wee cowfish.

Developmental milestones are still an amusing read on my part. Did you know that at 17 months toddlers will most likley learn to throw a ball overhand? I would never have noticed if I hadn't read that. Cubling must have read it too, as she did it on the day of her 17 months birthday with a very cheeky grin. And I have to admit I was very proud of her.