I wrote not long ago that it seems like we have a different girl at home. Indeed, Avery is more bubbly, energetic and curious than ever.

She’s really fun to be around. She almost always has a smile on her face and, like mentioned recently, she often enters a room with a happy “hi-yee.” She also started running up to people with unsolicited hugs recently; just before typing this, for example, she saw Q in the kitchen and ran up to him with a “Dad-dee” and a big squeeze to his legs.

I still wouldn’t call her a big talker, but she has a bunch of new words in her vocabulary. The most common ones: “hi,” “no, no, no,” “bye,” and “good night” – with the latter two always accompanied by a big wave. (She understands when we’re about to leave in the morning or heading to bed, and she’ll wave and give a huge smile to whomever she’s leaving behind.) And she still says “thank you” (which comes out as “duh-duh”) when we hand her something.

Even when not talking, she’s really good at getting across what she wants – by pointing, shaking her head, leading us to an object of interest or saying “hummm” or “mummm” (her way of saying “mine,” I guess). And she continues to understand and follow certain directives. Just yesterday she put my pajamas in the hamper after being asked, and she recently ran into her bedroom and grabbed her box of wipes when I said she needed to be changed.

Up until a few days ago, if I asked Avery where her nose was, she would point to my nose and laugh. But she surprised me and actually pointed to hers just yesterday. She knows her belly button, too; now we have to work on other body parts!

In terms of favorite activities, she still likes playing with her tea set and her sister’s kitchen toys. She also enjoys a refrigerator magnet set that plays the ABCs; because of it (and perhaps the fact that I sing that and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to her every night), she’s often singing the alphabet song. And she’s surprisingly in tune!

Avery spends a lot of time sitting at the table at her room, pretending to eat, and she also recently started to stand on the chairs. (It’s a real no-no and she knows it; she always shoots me a mischievous I’m-not-supposed-to-be-doing-this look and smile.) She likes climbing on other things, too – like the couch, the bathroom stool and Zoe’s bed. She also likes going through the house and closing doors and playing peek-a-boo through the window between our room and hers.

As mentioned earlier, she’s becoming more and more interactive – and loving – with her sister. She now often goes up to her sister for hugs and kisses, comforts her when she’s upset about something, and brings Zoe’s stuffed hippo or blanket to her when she sees them lying around.

She’s still a bit shy/tentative around new people – or people she hasn’t seen in awhile – but it seems like that’s slowly changing. She had no problem being with new people on Halloween, for example, and she has warmed up to some people she sees fairly regularly. (“Oh, she gave me a smile!” one of the teachers at Zoe’s school, who sees Avery several times a week, recently said.)

Within the last month, she went from two naps to one at home. (She hasn’t slept in the morning at Elena’s for months). She’ll now go to sleep anywhere between 11:30 and 1:30 and sleep from 1-3 hours, and she goes down for the night at 7. (It doesn’t take much to get her to sleep – usually just a bounce and a song or two.)

As for physical stuff, her description is the exact same as Zoe’s at this age:

Her hair is getting curlier, her eyes remain a blue-ish grey… and she looks more like a little girl each day.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 19th, 2010 at 7:50 pm and is filed under 52.Two kids-November 10. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.