After I spent time with a friend’s newborn recently, Q asked me if I was feeling sad – or yearning for a baby. My surprising (and refreshing) answer was “no.” While I can appreciate the specialness of caring for an infant, the truth is that in many ways, having an older child is much more rewarding and fun. And though I’m still sentimental about my second baby growing up, I’m also loving this phase. (How can I not go nuts over this face?)

Avery, for the most part, is terribly fun to be around. She loves to smile and laugh (she’ll often look up at me, half-asleep, and smile as I’m singing to her at bedtime), and she always wants to be around people. She can be very considerate and helpful: If her sister is crying, she’ll come over with a concerned look and ask, “What happened?” Numerous times during the day she’ll run up to me with my phone, because she thinks I need it. She reminds me to get my coat (and sometimes gets it for me) as we’re leaving in the morning, and she likes to hand me my towel when I’m stepping out of the shower. (I remember Zoe doing the same thing, too.) Just the other day she accidentally drew on a chair; without any instruction she ran to her room, got a wipe and returned to the chair to start cleaning it. (I’m happy to report that the pen came out.)

She’s talking more and more – she’s always telling elaborate “stories.” Her vocabulary is growing at a fast clip; the exciting thing is that she says words now that she didn’t say just one month ago. And she is using more sentences: “Hold my hand, ‘kay?” she instructed Zoe the other morning as they walked into Elena’s. She asks “What’s that?” constantly, and as Zoe did at this age, she likes to point out when something is hers (“mine”) or her sister’s (“Sister’s milk”). Her recognition skills are also getting better: She can identify many more objects in her books, though she still calls many fruits “apple.” And if you ask her the color of something, she’ll almost always answer “yellow.”

A funny story related to talking: I recently did an exercise where I had her repeat things I say. “Can you say Mommy?” I asked, and she answered, “Mommy!” “Can you say Daddy?,” I asked, and she answered, “Daddy!” “Can you say Zoe?” I asked, and she answered, “Sister!” That’s still what she calls Zoe.

She loves music – she’s often singing (Happy Birthday is still her favorite; she’s going to be really confused today when we sing it for real) and clapping when she hears a song. As I type this, with music in the background, she’s actually running in circles, dancing, squealing and clapping – having a blast. We’re going to the amusement park to celebrate today, and I commented to Q that we don’t even need to. This is the stuff that makes her most happy!

As for the less fun stuff: Avery is known to throw a small fit if she doesn’t get her way, and she still uses a very high-pitched squeal for things as minor as her sister trying to kiss her. (Let’s just say her dramatic squeak continues.) There is also a downside to her wanting to be around people all the time: She can be very clingy, whining if Q or I don’t pick her up, and crying when one of us leaves the room.

Lastly, her growth spurt continues: At her two-year check-up on Friday, we were told she was close to 32 pounds and 35.75 inches tall. She’s about the size of a 3-year-old.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 19th, 2011 at 7:00 am and is filed under 59.Two kids-June 11. 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.