22-month update
A few mornings last week Q and I woke up to giggles coming from Avery’s room. Zoe had bypassed our room and gone straight to her sister’s when she woke up, and the two of them (with Avery still in her crib) were now playing, talking, laughing – and acting like geniune friends. It really struck me: We have two little girls now. Avery is hardly a baby anymore.
In terms of our younger little girl’s temperament and activities, she hasn’t changed terribly much since last month. She still loves running around the house, preparing food in her sister’s kitchen, cuddling with and feeding her baby doll, and playing (and being affectionate) with her sister. (Hide-and-seek is one of their favorite games.) She loves going out – when it’s time to leave in the morning she’ll wave and say “bye-bye” and run to the door, and she’s often getting my purse or coat (“coat!” she’ll cry out) for me. She continues to mimic Zoe: She always wants to play with what Zoe is playing with or doing what Zoe is doing. As an example, she saw that Zoe had milk on her cereal one morning and insisted that Q pour some on her cereal, too. (She communicated this by a combination of pointing and saying one word – something we see a lot of these days.)
She is always chattering away, and Q commented to me that new (real) words are increasingly included in her monologues. The words we hear most often are “yeh!” and “okay!” – which she always says excitedly – and, of course, “mine.” (She doesn’t say “no” that much; she usually just shakes her head or runs away to get her point across.) She also loves to sing: It’s common for her to belt out the ABCs or Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star when she’s riding in the car or lying in bed. And at the end of most songs – hers or mine – she claps.
She’s been a bit more tantrum-y lately, as previously mentioned. She tends to cry dramatically and/or go in the corner and pout if she doesn’t get what she wants. Dinnertime has been especially difficult lately: She has become very finicky (it’s the age, I know), and tends to get upset if we offer her something that doesn’t appeal to her. She has had a few time-outs, during which we put her in her crib for a few minutes – and she’s (usually) quick to apologize for her foul behavior afterwards.
I mentioned last month that she’s more open to new people and experiences, but that’s not always the case. She was quite shy during a recent playdate, she was a little freaked out about the giant Elmo at the zoo, and when Zoe’s teachers watched her during our recent parent-teacher conference, Avery sat at a little table – and didn’t move – for 30 minutes. (She wasn’t upset, though – and it probably helped that Zoe was standing next to her most of the time!) I think it’s going to take a bit of time before she’s completely out of her shell!
-M