Aveline is Nineteen Months Old

Avie with her new shades. She kind of likes them.

Aveline, on her nineteen-month birthday.

Aveline turned nineteen months old a week ago yesterday. What a true joy this little child is. Jarrett commented the other evening that he thinks he is truly going to be sad when Avie is no longer little. With Elsa, and especially with her being our first child, it was always when is she going to do the next thing and we cannot wait until she does [fill in the blank]. But with Avie, and knowing she is our last child, it is more like can we please slow down time a little here and just stay this age, will you, please?

But as much as I think we would like to stop time some days, what I can definitely say is that I believe we are enjoying each and every stage our girls enter into. While Elsa is learning to write letters and sound out words and even throw in some simple math here and there, Aveline is full on in the toddlerhood realm. And I love it. Both of these stages.

We learned that Avie is starting to learn to count this past month, one evening when she and Elsa were getting a special treat after dinner. We gave them each a few M&Ms, and counted them out as we gave them to each girl. Suddenly Avie started naming the next consecutive number. She seems to especially love the number eight. And then we realized she also recognizes at least a few letters when we were playing in the bath with some squishy foam letters Grandmom Helms sent them in the mail. The letter H is the clear favorite here. With Elsa, it was always K and Q. So funny.

Aveline is very into jumping right now, and though she can't get herself very high off the ground, she does succeed in getting a little air every once in awhile. She also thinks jumping off small ledges is fun. She loves running here and there, and joins in on Elsa and Daddy's game of "scary monster" (named by Elsa), where Daddy is the monster and growls and chases the girls around the house. Once caught, it is a full-on ticklefest.

She and Elsa like to copy each other, which can either be super cute or super grating on the nerves, depending on the activity. Rolling around together on the wheely bugs? Giving hugs back and forth? Dancing? Super cute. Throwing food on the floor? Banging their cups on the counter? Screaming? Not so cute. But, regardless, it is fun that they are interacting more and more. Yesterday morning, Elsa asked Avie if she wanted to sit in her lap, and then proceeded to read an entire book (Each Peach, Pear, Plum) to her. Priceless. I am sensing they are going to be in the bunk beds together in the not too distant future (will have to get another mattress first!), and it will be interesting to see what that looks like, when they both have the freedom to get in and out of bed!

Aveline is obsessed with babies. She has always had an affinity for baby dolls, but now it is just babies in general. Babies in books and magazines. Babies in strollers at the store. And babies whom are our friends. Yesterday we were on a walk with Shelly and her youngest (he's around nine months), Jack, and she just kept going over to him and trying to give him hugs and pointing to him, "Ack! Ack!"

She loves being read to more and more, and will bring you one book after the other. She is finding Blue Hat, Green Hat pretty funny these days. And loves the aforementioned Each Peach, Pear, Plum because of Baby Bunting. But, really, even though she seems to have some favorites for sure, she will just continue grabbing board book after board book off the shelf. She still cannot quite sit still for the longer stories that Elsa enjoys, but will share a lap for a bit and listen, and then go off and find a book of her own.

Avie continues to learn new words, and is starting to repeat words she hears more and more. It is still difficult to differentiate between some of her like-sounding words a lot of times, but me, being the mom, can usually figure it  out. She will still also throw in sign language quite a lot. She pronounces Elsa's name as "Salsa," which is fantastic. And a "bye, bye" (accompanied by a wave) you are okay with hearing over and over again. She has the sweetest "uh-huhs" and the shaking of the head combined with "noooo" is a new one. And the "yaaaays" -- oh, how I love the "yaaaays." Such enthusiasm.

She continues to be very easy to put to bed at night, but has just recently seemed to want to reject being put down for a nap. I am not sure what changed or what the deal is, but I am obviously pushing through and just letting her cry for five minutes. Usually by that time, she will have decided to give in and go to sleep, but sometimes one of us has to go in and cuddle with her for a bit before trying again. She is super easy to leave with other people, though. She seems to love the nursery at church now and we've had to leave her during the day with a couple of different people, and the transition is always smooth. She went to Gabriela's for a couple of hours for a second time on Thursday and, again, absolutely loved it and did not want to leave. My friend, Beri, watched her during the morning a couple of weeks ago and took this super sweet photo of the two of them, which I just adore. Beri has two little boys, so I think she was soaking up this cuddle time with a little girl.