Ms. Chatterbox

I realized that I haven't given an update on Ava in a while, and a lot has been happening with her lately! She will officially be 2 1/2 in September, and sometimes I am just shocked at when I hold her how big she has gotten. And very soon, she'll no longer be the baby - she'll be the big sister. A definite bittersweet moment for me.

One thing that's funny is that just a few short months ago, she wanted to be called "Baby." If you asked her what her name is, she would say, "Baby," and if you tried to call her something else, she would correct you right away. A lot of that stemmed from the fact that we've called her "baby" since birth - it just kind of became our pet name for, even though we still call her by her name plenty. I was beginning to wonder if this was going to cause problems when the new baby arrived. But somehow, that's completely changed recently, and now you are forbidden to call her baby or refer to her as a baby whatsoever! She cracks me up.

Just in the past 1-2 months, Ava's speech has taken off! She went from putting two words together, which was a major deal at the time, to suddenly speaking in full sentences with an extensive vocabulary! It felt like it happened literally overnight. In fact, just this morning she was telling me that she was ready to go to the mall and was it open?! It's crazy to think of where we were just 8 months ago. The girl had no words at all, and now she's talking all of the time! Truly, she is a chatterbox around us. She's still pretty quiet around everyone else, so I'm not sure they all believe us, but I swear that it's true! I attribute this not just to regular speech therapy, but also I think she's just a late bloomer in the area of speech, and she needed to take her time. Now, I feel like she is pretty much at the level she should be, which is shocking to say. I don't have any plans to up and quit speech therapy just yet since it's still beneficial to her, and she loves the time she spends with her speech therapist, who is very sweet and plays lots of games with her. Plus, the speech therapist comes to our house, so you can't beat that. Ava is starting to show her more of what she can do, which is awesome, so hopefully with some more time, we'll be able to move on, but I'm not in a rush.

Being Silly

And, of course, since Ava is the wonderful age of two, she has that perfect mix of being so darn delightful and cute....and so willful and full of temper! Man, her tantrums are sooo painful! Screaming and hitting and sometimes even throwing things. No fun at all. But the majority of the time, she really is so enjoyable to be around. Well, that is, as long as you know that she needs to do everything herself. Because if you don't, then you will certainly fall prey to another tantrum! She must pour her own milk and oatmeal and stir it all up. She must climb into the car and into her carseat solo - that means no hands touching her at all! Which can be a little frustrating when you're running late, and she is having a hard time climbing up. You may even want to pull your hair out and just tell, "Please just let me help you!" But you can't or it will just make it worse. Yes, the good old twos!

I had been a little worried that Ava would really miss Asher a lot when he's at school, and I can tell that she does somewhat. But I can also see that she is really relishing her time alone also. She has more space to do her own thing and use her imagination, and she and I get more quality time together, too. So I've been pleased with how things have been going so far.

Ava isn't potty trained yet, and that is mainly because I haven't taken the full leap knowing that it isn't worth it with the baby coming. She uses the potty everyday, though, and I think that once I invest the time in it in another couple months when things settle down a bit, she'll be ready to use it full-time without too many problems (I hope!). 

There's no doubt that Ava will have some adjustments with the baby arriving, but I also see how much she absolutely adores all babies, and I think she is going to love being a big sister overall. I can't wait to see how much she loves her baby brother and how sweet she is with him. I also look forward to all that she will be saying, too!

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