15-month update
The other afternoon when I walked into Elena’s, I looked right past a tall, smiling, dark-haired girl who was walking towards me. After doing a double-take, I realized it was actually Avery – and my “baby,” who today hits the one-and-a-quarter-year mark, was looking less like a baby and more like a little girl!
So what’s Avery like these days? As you can see from the recent videos, she’s a pro at walking – and it’s common to find her zipping through the house, following one of us (usually me) while carrying around a (play or real) cup, bowl or spoon. She’s also often chattering away; though she doesn’t say as many “real words” as I remember Zoe staying at this stage, she’s got her own language that she likes to use. It’s also common for her to mimick what we say (or at least how it sounds to her), and the real words she uses most often are “uh-oh” (whenever anything drops) and “hi.”
As mentioned last time, even when she can’t talk, Avery has no trouble letting us know what she wants. She’ll often walk up to us with a bag of goldfish she plucked from the cupboard, for example, and when she’s hungry she’ll smack her mouth together. And after having her milk before bed one night, she climbed down and pointed to the ball (where we still bounce her to sleep) – and once on the ball, pointed up at her bookshelf, since we usually read a book together. I was impressed!
Her new “party tricks?” She can do the sign for and “say” touchdown, as shown in our recent video. If you ask her for a “kissie,” she’ll open her mouth wide, make an “ahhhh” sound and plant a kiss on your cheek. And she’ll likely lift up her shirt and look down when you ask where her “beebo” (belly button) is.
In terms of personality, our new theory is that we have a diva-in-training. She tends to whine or complain if things aren’t just the way she likes; if her sister touches her – even lightly – Avery is likely to lodge some sort of complaint. And when she’s unhappy about something, she usually flings her body to the ground and puts her head down in dramatic fashion or makes a beeline straight to me for comfort. Similar to Zoe as a toddler, Avery tends to be very quiet and serious in new situations; and she’s (still) more clingy than Zoe ever was. At a playdate last week, as example, Avery didn’t have much interest in playing with the other girls – she instead wanted to watch things from a distance, cling to my leg, or sit on my lap and snack. (She did warm up to the girls eventually, but it took awhile.)
Her favorite things to do are similar to last time; she loves flipping through her books, climbing up on her table and just sitting there, and pushing her sister’s doll strollers (usually two at once) around. Though she does get irritated with her sister at times, I don’t think her smile is ever as big as it is when she first sees her in the morning. They’re also playing with each other more than ever before (see the recent hide-and-seek video), and I told a friend the other day that I can the light at the end of the tunnel: that day when the girls entertain themselves on their own, and allow me and Q to sleep in!
As for physical appearance, Avery has (finally) gotten much more hair, and what has grown in is fairly dark. She has eight teeth – four on the top and four on the bottom – and because of her big (still grey) eyes, I like to say that she’s all eyes and forehead. I can’t think of a face that I like kissing more (well, except for maybe Z’s)!
-M