20 months from now...

We hung out with two 17-month-old kids this weekend: my niece (who I like to playfully call "The Beast" mainly because she isn't) and the fabulously red-headed daughter of friends-of-friends. Seems like that's a pretty kick-ass age.

They walk (for the most part, unless confronted with any kind of step, even if it is just a two-inch micro-step between hallway and kitchen).

They also kind of talk. The Beast seemed quite enamoured with our parrot, which she kept pointing at and saying "bah", presumably for "bird". Excellent effort, toots. Red was also rather vocal, having figured out "Dada" was the correct word for her dad. The Beast on the other hand seems to correlate "Dada" with "man" which my sister and brother-in-law report is uncomfortable for everyone involved!

They listen - you tell them to do (or not do) something and for the most part they will follow instructions.

They also want to touch everything. Red was strangely drawn to my friend's Resident Evil 4 XBox video game box, with its dark images of zombies on the cover. Odd. Meanwhile The Beast has figured out how to call Dada (the real one, not just any man) on her mom's cellphone. She even goes to far as to dig the phone out of my sister's bag.

One other cool thing is that they eat real food. Since K and I are such foodies, we're looking forward to shaping our child's dietary preferences (or at least trying to). The Beast likes vegetables in pasta, despite everyone's best attempts to get her to eat pieces of choc-chip muffin.

Finally, and maybe best of all, they smile and laugh. It was hilarious to pretend to eat one of our parrot's almonds, with the attendant "nom-nom" sound, and have The Beast burst into peals of laughter each time.

We only have to wait 20 months for this sweet-spot of child development. Why, that's just around the corner...