I haven't done an Ava update in a while, so it's long overdue. I was glad to be done with the monthly updates of the first year, but I do want to keep track of what she's been up to, so for her second year I'm going to do 3-month updates at 15, 18, 21 and 24 months.
It's amazing how much she's changed in three months. In my last update, she had just started crawling and standing. Now she's walking like a pro and suddenly seems more "little girl" than "baby."
She started walking just after 13 months and hasn't been still since. My house hasn't been clean since either. She loves to open cabinets and drawers and strow the contents about. And her absolute favorite forbidden fruit? Climbing the stairs. We had to get serious about childproofing really quickly.
Her language skills are starting to blossom too. She understands lots of words and can say: uh oh, bye bye, night night, dog dog, ball, bubbles, light, mama and dada (although she gets them mixed up and calls lots of things dada, like random people on the street and pictures of Jesus), and most recently she's learned no and mine (not nearly as fun). She can show you her belly, point to her nose and sign for "more" and "milk."
She has a favorite book, Bizzy Bear on the Farm, and will bring it to us to read approximately 237 times per day. She moos at the cow, quacks at the duck, says "doodle do" after the rooster cockadoodle-dos and will finish the last sentence which ends in "bye bye."
Whenever I'm sitting on the floor she walks over, turns around, and backs her little behind into my lap, which pretty much makes me die on the spot. She gives hugs and kisses, saying "uh uh" and "muah" respectively. Now that she finally gives closed-mouth kisses, I actually kind of miss the open-mouthed sloppy ones.
And for old time's sake, a few of the monthly update categories:
Clothing: 18 or 24 months, size 4 diaper
Eating: While she used to be an eat-every-single-thing-on-her-plate-every-meal kind of girl, she's now settled into a more typical toddler pattern of having meals where she eats great, and meals where she eats very little. The pediatrician said this is perfectly normal. She loves cheese, sausage, chicken, green beans and most fruits. She can feed herself with a spoon pretty well, and drinks her milk and water solely out of sippy cups (dropped the bottle at 12 months). And during Christmas, she learned the joys of chocolate and sweets. Any time I'd be eating a treat, she'd walk over, plop down on the floor and start signing "more," which means "give me some of that delicious thing you're eating."
Sleep: Sleeps through the night consistently (7:30pm until 7 or 7:30 am), with the occasional wakeup here or there. She got ear tubes right before Thanksgiving that I think did a lot to lessen the wakeups. Takes one nap on daycare days and usually two naps when she's home on the weekends.
Illness: In the past 3 months she's had roseola, hand/foot/mouth, a couple of ear infections that led to the aforementioned tubes and a mystery virus that we were convinced was RSV but turned out not to be (or at least the test was negative). Sounds like a lot, but it's actually been a lot better than last year so far (knock on wood).
Her height is 54th percentile and weight is 75th.
And finally some pictures to wrap up the last three months.
Already has a shoe obsession:
Loves her wagon that she got for her birthday:
Fun at Marbles Kids' Museum:
Loves to stand in our shoes:
Thanksgiving feast at daycare:
Selfies after bath:
This is a classic Ava face:
Everyone always tells me she has the most facial expressions, which is a nice way of saying "she can cut you the evil eye in a hot minute."
Signing for "more":
Loves the racecar shopping carts:
Enjoying Thanksgiving lunch:
Soaking up the attention at Thanksgiving:
Princesses need naps too:
Happy 15 months Ava!
(I'll be back soon to tell you about our Christmas!)
