Twelve-month (!) update
I don’t recall as much about Zoe as a baby as you’d expect, but I’ve always remembered really liking the one-year mark. And now, with Avery, I see why: it’s such a sweet and smiley age!
As mentioned in the last update, Avery’s personality continues to emerge. She’s generally bubbly and outgoing and still very cuddly: she likes being picked up and hugged, and she tends to cry if one of us leaves the room. (I guess this is the age for separation anxiety; she’s also pretty slow to warm up to strangers or people she hasn’t seen in awhile.) She’s the happiest when her sister walks into a room and greets her or when her dad comes home at night (she always sits on her knees, bounces up and down and puts out her arms to be picked up). I’m also guaranteed to get a laugh when I repeat a line from the ABC Song: “Next time won’t you sing with me.”
Other favorites: playing in her sister’s kitchen, munching and crawling around with her Noah’s Ark wooden shapes, and pulling her dad’s hat off his head. (Their little game is how she learned the word hat.) I noticed recently that she has started to play pretend: she’ll sit in Zoe’s kitchen and “eat” with a little fork and plate, and whenever she has a phone (real or pretend) in her hand, she puts it up to her ear as if she’s talking. Other new things: She likes to hand toys and other objects to people (though she sometimes gets upset if you actually take them) and to try to open and explore drawers or cabinets. Just yesterday morning, she pulled open a kitchen cabinet, grabbed a box of cereal and tried to reach her hand in.
She has lots of books, and still really likes her Peek-a-Who one, but in general she doesn’t like sitting long enough for a story. Usually I just read aloud as she zips around, and Zoe winds up being the one to listen!
In terms of talking, she still does a lot of it. Her vocabulary these days consists of: dada, mama, hat (which she now calls anything that you put on your head), hi and the previously mentioned hi-yah. She recently started making really loud noises – kind of like screams, though she’s not upset – when in the car, and Zoe, sadly, is not a fan (“Avery! My ears hurt,” she’ll cry out.) Avery has also taken to loudly squealing if a toy is taken away from her, if she wants something Zoe has (and Zoe won’t give it up) or if she feels she is being ignored. (Because she likes getting her way so much, Q and I suspect she may turn into a bit of a princess. Then again, don’t all second girls??)
Though she can’t say much yet, her level of understanding and communicating is getting more sophisticated. She impressed me the other day, for example, by racing over to the Boppy, which I use to feed her, when I mentioned the word milk. And speaking of milk, she’s still a big fan. When I give her the sign or ask if she wants some, she usually makes a little laugh and says, “Mmmmm” over and over. Her other favorite foods: provolone cheese and bananas. (She sometimes shakes in excitement when she sees the latter.)
She naps twice a day at home (just once at Elena’s) and has been sleeping really well (7:30 PM-6:30 AM) at night. She always sleeps on her stomach, and she usually falls asleep holding one of the bars on her crib or draping one of her arms through the opening.
Like Zoe, I wouldn’t call Avery a terribly difficult baby – and it keeps getting easier! I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.
-M