Two-and-a-half today, and time for another update. The biggest change since our last one: Avery’s a preschooler now! And while her first few days were a little rocky, she quickly adapted. These days, she’s especially excited about school: She’s eager to go into the classroom to start her day in the morning (no long, drawn-out good-byes for her) and when I pick her up in the afternoon, she usually gives me long (though often not entirely decipherable) descriptions of what she did. She also enjoys a game in which she names off her teachers and classmates; she especially likes it when I throw in a random name and ask if she knows that person. (“No Penelope in my class!” she’ll say with a big laugh.)
Another big development is her verbal skills. She talks more than ever before – and in longer, multi-word sentences (though her favorite phrase for the past few months has been the monosyllabic “Why?”). She talks and asks a lot about where people are (“Daddy at work?”) and what they’re doing (“Is Zoe awake?” “Mommy going to eat that?”) She also likes commenting on Zoe’s behavior: “Zoe not listening?” and “Zoe’s crying again,” for example. And she loves going around saying “Zoe’s five, I two” while holding up the appropriate fingers. She started saying “Love you, too!” in response to “I love you” a few months ago; because she knows how much I love it, the comment is usually accompanied by a tilt of the head and a fluttering of eyelashes, to maximize the cuteness. (She has definitely picked up on how proud we are of her newly honed communication skills; often after saying a new word or phrase she’ll flash us a proud, aren’t-I-cute smile.)
And then there’s her recent shift in personality: She’s way less shy/tentative around other people now. She’s friendlier to others at playdates, and she doesn’t do as much clinging to me and her dad in social situations. At Zoe’s recent birthday party, I watched in excitement/awe as Avery looked around the room looking for Aunt Jenny, walked up to her and put up her hands to be held – and my mom practically melted a few weeks ago when Avery stepped out of our car, saw her across the parking lot and started running to her with a joyful “Grandma!” (I don’t think Avery would have done these things as recently as two or three months ago.)
Avery loves playing – with her babies, with little figurines and animals (including a mini stuffed dog she recently named Holly), with various items in her kitchen – and she also loves doing whatever her sister is doing (like putting on shows). She is often singing – her favorites remain Happy Birthday; Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; and the Hamotzi – and about a month ago she busted out a mash-up of Old MacDonald Had a Farm and Bingo. And as established here before, she’s a big fan of playing the guitar.
Other fun/funny stuff: She calls cakes and cupcakes “happy birthdays.” She still loves (and sleeps with) her two little babies, whom she calls Baby and Other Baby. She is a parrot – in the past few weeks, especially, she has been repeating almost everything her sister says/does. (For example, she has adopted Zoe’s love of playing school and pretending she’s the teacher: Just last week, Avery demanded that I sit down for a “meeting,” like at school, and proceeded to “read” to me like I was her student). If you call her something other than Avery, like “pumpkin,” she’ll usually say, “No – I Avery!†She likes being silly – like pretending she is Zoe or Daddy or Mommy – and her newest thing is to put her hands together at the top of her hand (think the safety signal in football) and twirl around. It’s her dreidel dance.
The not-so-fun stuff: Our tough little cookie can be defiant and tempermental, and she’ll occasionally throw objects in anger. (“Torry, torry,” she’ll say – her way of pronouncing sorry – as her dad or I carry her away to be disciplined.) If you do something she doesn’t like (such as tuck her hair behind her ears – a real pet peeve of hers), she’ll likely yell out, “No do that!” Within the last few weeks she started fibbing about her sister – saying Zoe hit her when she didn’t, for example. But hopefully that’s a short-lived phase.
And some other random things/milestones: She moved to a toddler bed in Sept., and I’m happy to report she hasn’t yet gotten out of her bed without being given permission. (And bedtime with her remains an easy thing.) We started a bit of potty-training in the fall, and she’s well on her way at this point. And people say with increasing frequency that she looks like her sister did at this age – mostly, I think, because Avery’s hair is now full and curly. (Her first hair-cut was last month.)
-M
