It’s a rare (rare rare rare rare. Rare) moment when Beans will remain captivated by something for longer than nine seconds at a time. Her life, and so my life, as hard as I try to resist when I’m heavy with tiredness and desperate for a cup of tea that stays hot while I slurp my way to the bottom of the mug, is lived on the go. Always always moving, running, jumping, pushing, pulling. There is so much to see and so much to do and ohmygoodness look mummy a birdie!

We don’t stop, ever. How can we when there are so many exciting things to do and new things to see and mischief to find? No, we go go go now now now.

So yeah, it really was a novelty when we sat together, legs outstretched in front of us on the floor as we played with one toy for fifteen whole minutes. She got really skilled at popping pompoms through holes and I drank a cup of hot tea and enjoyed the relative peace and was able to think without dwelling.

My thoughts led me around the garden of my mind, managing to steal clear of the wasteland at the back and skip around the happy tree in the middle for a while. I realised that at the very second that we sat there, sipping tea and wow-ing at the multicoloured pompom it was exactly eighteen months, almost to the minute (spooky) since Beans was born.

Eighteen months. A year and a half. Exactly.

When did that happen?

A eighteen month old child seems eons away from the tiny, smooshed faced newborn who could only scream at me on the hour every hour. She runs, she jumps, she climbs, she unlocks doors with keys (help me!). She calls me Mama-mum-eeeeeee and she looks up from underneath eyelashes framed by raised eyebrows and walks on tiptoes when she’s about to do something really, really naughty. She exclaims ‘baybee!’ before grabbing her doll, cradling it and patting its back. Where does she learn these things?! She says words. She says no. No no no no no no no all the time.

Would you like a bath?

‘No’.

It’s bath time.

‘No’.

Yes. Let’s brush your teeth too.

‘No’.

Bring baby.

‘No’.

Can you say anything else? Say yes for mummy.

‘No’.

Is mummy your friend?

‘No’.

Even though she builds towers with you?

‘No’.

Come on, mummy will sing to you in the bath.

‘No’.

Yes.

‘No’.

Yes.

‘No’.

Yes.

‘No’.

Are you just going to say no to everything?

‘No’.

Are you sure?

‘No’.

Will you come upstairs for a bath?

‘No’.

Do you want a puppy?

‘Yeh’.

It turns out that eighteen month olds are pretty tough going. It turns out that on the eve of turning eighteen months we were all kept up for four hours in the middle of the night because someone didn’t really fancy sleeping right then thanks very much. This resulted in me feeling close to as exhausted as I remember feeling when my baby was a mere eighteen hours new.

I turned to Beans, you’re one and a half today. She glanced up at me for just long enough for a confused glaze to wash over her face before she diverted her attention back to the pompoms. The yellow one this time.
We have made it through a whole year and a half. We’re all still alive. You’re pretty awesome really. We survived! High five?

Without hesitation out stretches a little eighteen month old hand and with a ton of eighteen month old enthusiasm it meets my own palm.

‘Yeh!’

We did it kid! And we did ok.